


Here's to the friends that were alibis

by HarveyDangerfield, Venn



Category: Rick and Morty, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It's tagged underage but that's not gonna feature for A MINUTE, Jealousy, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nazis, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Subspace, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 123,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyDangerfield/pseuds/HarveyDangerfield, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venn/pseuds/Venn
Summary: The Commission's best and brightest assassin is sent after their highest priority target, one Rick Sanchez of C-137 fame.Two old men stand in front of one another like a pair of mirrors, and find more in common than they ever could have imagined.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Rick Sanchez, Rick Sanchez/Morty Smith
Comments: 35
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this might be a bit of a weird crossover but hear me out.............. it's really good 
> 
> old man five needs more attention and love tbh he's so good. he's so good
> 
> this will have some illustrations in it bc i can't help myself

Two years and some change into five's career with the Commission, and he's gotten pretty used to routine. The genetic modification was new, and the recovery has been wild to say the least, but after a brief (and very generous, according to the Commission) vacation of three whole days, he's ready to get right back to work-- and already he's being called directly into the Handler's office for a "special assignment."

Sitting on her desk when he approaches, she snaps shut the manilla folder she'd been browsing, crossing her legs and setting it on her lap. "Ah, there you are," she says, smoothing down her skirt. "Feeling better? All that--" she wiggles her fingers towards him. "Dust settled?"

"As settled as it can be for the time being, I think," Five says, eyes glancing down to the folder in her hand. He doesn't take a step toward her or give any inclination that he even cared about what she was reading, his hands tucking into the pockets of his suit, weight shifted to one foot. 

They had told him that the adjustment to his senses would be the hardest to get used to. Everything certainly felt sharper: Sharper sight, sharper smells, hearing-- Five swore he could hear the Handler's heart beating beneath the tight bodice of her dress. He looks up, lest his gaze linger.

"Are we here to talk payment? You said I'd get two years."

"In due time," she says, holding the folder out at arms length towards him. "You've had some time to rest, but it's time to test out your new abilities. We're giving you a... special case. The man in this file is someone we scouted personally to join the Commission, who joined us for an extremely brief tenure of just 21 hours, before stealing a briefcase and running off."

When Five opens the file, he sees a mugshot of a man around his age with bright blue hair and a jaded expression, beside the name Rick Sanchez. The Handler gives him a few moments to look over the contents of the file before continuing. "He's _extremely_ dangerous, _highly_ skilled, and practically immortal, so we thought it'd be a fun test of your new abilities. He knows too much about us and he has to be stopped."

Five frowns as he looks through the folder and scans through its contents. Dimension designations, actions against time, crimes against the Commission, offenses listed by severity and date committed. And there, on the back page, the list of prior agents sent to handle him. A glance down the line makes Five look up to the Handler, brows twitching together, "You've let this guy kill forty agents? I don't even recognize any of these names." He squints down at the sheet. Either they were hoping they could wear him out, or they had severely underestimated this man's tenacity.

The Handler's jaw flexes at that, but her placid smile otherwise remains in place. "Forty-one," she corrects primly, smoothing her hands over her skirt again before linking her fingers together around her knee. "And in our defense, we only sent twenty-one missions after him. The last one was a hail mary where we sent twenty people at once hoping to overwhelm him. It didn't work." 

Didn't work, indeed. According to the file, all twenty agents were "killed in the crossfire" but it doesn't say anything more specific than that. 

"That's why we're sending you," she continues brightly. "You're our top agent, especially now that the modifications have settled. If you can't stop him, we're really going to have to resort to some drastic measures."

Five's eyes level on The Handler with icy scrutiny. A tool, he reminds himself, looking back down at the folder in his hand. Considering this person had to be one of their most wanted targets, he'd think their folder on him would be larger. The fact it wasn't only stood to tell how little the Commission had gotten on him with the full weight of their attention focused in his direction.

He would have been impressed, if his name wasn't the last name added to the list of forty-one. 

"Does this say he had a threesome with Caesar and Cleopatra?" He asks, his voice deadpan. He's glad to have the practice he had with his flat, sarcastic tone, or there was no way he could have helped but smile.

The Handler sighs, wearily. "Yes, he did. Apparently, he got them both to fall in love with him in dimension F-458, so deeply that there's a great pyramid with his face carved into it. We're working on correcting that. Presently he's in dimension Z-295," she gives another heavy sigh. "Attempting to gain Hitler's trust and take over the Third Reich. It's a bit out of character for him, everything he's done so far has seemed like frivolous selfish nonsense, this is a bit more... targeted, to say the least. _Why_ he's doing it doesn't matter, we just need him to stop. Any questions?"

"I trust you're fine if I kill him and get it over with," Five says shortly, closing the folder with a snap and tucking it under his arm, "I'm not going to leave a loose end and risk him escaping and making me look stupid. If you want to put him back together again, I'll try to keep his pieces somewhat intact. Any other parameters I should know about?"

"Don't, and this is very important," the Handler says seriously. "Under any circumstances, talk to him. He's known for being extremely manipulative, and can talk his way out of almost any situation. And where talking fails, he's extraordinarily dangerous both from close range and at a distance. Your best bet for termination is if he doesn't even know you're there at all. Be swift, and be careful. We're counting on you."

"Remaining unseen is my specialty. Or have you forgotten in three days?" Five winks at The Handler, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smug little curl before he vanishes without another trace, before she even gets the chance to reply. 

There's no concern in his actions, moving forward. He walks to his dormitory, because he would need as much teleportation ability as possible. His go bag was packed, his rifle polished and at the ready. He packs it into its slim, minimalist briefcase before getting his second one from the check out booth, case file and timeframe already approved and accepted by The Commission. 

"Take over the Third Reich," Five mutters, annoyance clear in his tone as he sets the Briefcase to the time and dimension of his target's choosing, "They always try to fuck with the Third Reich."

Typically, Five wasn't given 'taking down Hitler' marks. If there was a time traveler, they'd tried to kill Hitler in a myriad of (usually bungled) ways. Many of them underestimated the might of the Third Reich when it came to security, believing that being from 'The Future' protected them from guns. Sloppy.

Five wasn't sloppy. The daily routine of Hitler was memorized by almost every Agent in The Commission now, for no other reason than how basic the chore was of stopping a rogue traveler from playing with shit they didn't understand, so once Five had established his home base, it took only a few days of surveillance to see where the man's routine had deviated from the norm: At around 1am every night, he would walk the hallways of his manor, ending at the elaborate bar nestled into the west wing. 

There, the blue-haired man, Rick Sanchez, would find him, and they would talk until the early hours.

It wasn't hard to knock Hitler unconscious and store him in a closet after being seen by the final guard in his rotation. Occasionally, Five wondered if his powers made his life too easy. Surely the task of knocking someone unconscious and storing them in a closet should take some semblance of work, but for Five? He barely broke a sweat, and Hitler was notoriously easy to subdue.

Five takes up mantle at the bar in his place, that night. Despite The Handler's warnings to avoid conversing with the target or interacting in any way, Five sets himself in plain view, on the very stool that Hitler liked to sit on. A massive, crystal bottle of whiskey sits on the bar beside him, from which he's given himself a generous pour. Beside him, his rifle leaned against the wood of the bar, almost the size of him while he's seated as he was. 

Keeping one eye on the clock as it drifts ever closer to the usual 1am rendezvous, Five takes a slow, measured drink of his whiskey, glancing over the bar and wishing he could have kept the bartender conscious, at least. Alas, he lay in a heap on the floor: Breathing, but deeply unconscious.

After a few minutes of nursing his drink, he hears foot steps coming down the hall, accompanied by a rough voice, gritty like sandpaper, speaking german with an extremely apparent American accent. His voice sounds casual, which tells Five that he's none the wiser about the current situation-- which works perfectly well for Five. 

"Yeah-- I'm telling you, man!" Rick's voice carries through the halls, shouting back at what is presumably some random soldier or guard. "In about thirty years, invest in Apple when it starts up! You won't be sorry!"

The door to the bar swings open and there he stands, Rick Sanchez, the man with the blue hair. He's not dressed like a Nazi, which is what Five would have expected of a man trying to gain Hitler's trust. He isn't even dressed like a man from the 1940s, he's wearing a plain white lab coat and polyester shirt and slacks, his hair styled (or perhaps wildly unstyled) into a spiky mane. He doesn't look like he's trying to fit in at all, in fact he stands out like a beacon among all the mahogany, inlaid gold and velvet. 

He doesn't look even a little surprised to see Five, he just sighs and reaches into his jacket, pulls out a laser gun (a _laser gun_ in the 1940s!) and fires off a single shot at Five.

Five sighs as well, grabs the handle of whiskey, and just before the beam hits him, vanishes, only to reappear on the stool 2 seats down, all without looking at the man. He raises his glass in the air, "Cheers to you, too," Five drawls, turning his head finally to inspect the spot where he had been. The wood of the bar had been some amalgamation of disintegrated and melted wood, spots charred and others dripping menacingly onto the plush carpet beneath them. 

Only then does he turn the rest of his body in his seat, raising the half-finished glass as he does, "Have a drink with me. Herr Fuhrer was known for his cognac, and I've gotta say. Not bad." Boldly, he takes another drink, this time keeping his eyes on the man over the rim of his glass.

" _Eugh_ , don't call him that," Rick says, putting his laser gun back in his jacket. He's had more than a couple of the Commission's goons sent after him, but none of them could teleport before. So they're learning new tricks, interesting. "So are they experimenting with shortwave teleportation just for fun, or did they figure it out just to try and get a leg up on me?" 

He steps over the puddle of melted goop to take a seat at the bar beside the other old man, and takes the bottle directly from him to raise to his lips for a swig. Fuck glasses, apparently.

"Neither. It was a perk of hiring me," Five says, apparently not minding as he drinks directly from the handle, even as Five takes another distinguished sip of his own drink.

He spares a glance at Rick as he finishes, curiosity in his eye, "You know, it's a miracle they didn't shoot you on sight. I don't know if you're familiar with the Reich's track record for stopping intruders in the timeline, but they have a fairly decent success rate. You must have some hell of a backstory." He admits, eyes lingering on the generically modern attire, not too unfamiliar from his own timeline. Memories.

"Yeah, it's called an iPhone," Rick says, belching loudly as he sets down the carafe. "Ol' Dolfy is pretty fucking stupid. Everything else just dominoe'd from there. Did you invent the teleportation device yourself, then? Pretty slick." He leans over the bar to grab a jar of peanuts he knows are stashed back there and sighs at the sight of the bartender unconscious on the floor. "Really? _Heinz?_ What'd he do, spit in your tequila?"

"I don't leave witnesses." Five says with a tight-lipped smile, lost under his moustache. Plucking the handle up from where Rick had set it down, he pours himself another glass, returning it to Rick's side without complaint. 

Turning in the chair again, Five gestures toward the bar, grandly, ignoring Rick's line about his teleportation. The less the man knew, the better. "So what's your plan, here? Take over the Third Reich? A little surprising for a man with your track record. Or I guess, a little average, don't you think?"

"I was triple-dog dared," Rick shrugs one shoulder, lifting the bottle for another drink from the mouth. "You seem like a man with integrity who understands the weight of a triple-dog."

"Fair enough," Five agrees without argument. That makes more sense than it doesn't. Traditionally time travelers sorted themselves into two categories: Fixers, or Agents of Chaos. Rick Sanchez, from his file, was certainly no fixer.

Tipping the glass back, Five settles it on the counter with a quiet noise, "So," He drawls, "You know how this goes."

"Yep," Rick pops the P and puts the bottle back on the counter, too. "You're not the first pocketjockey the Commission's sent after me, but you seem different. You wanna at least see what I've done with the place before you fuck it up? It's pretty funny."

Five had more to say, technically. He'd been planning what he was going to say. But, the draw of seeing just what actual chaos he'd have to clean up after was a strong one. So after a pause he reaches over and pours himself another glass, getting to his feet, "By all means, lead the way," He says with a gesture. His rifle is still leaned against the bar, but the soldiers know better than to come by here at this time of night.

Rick leads Five back through the doors the way they came with a skip to his step. "So I was in the 2010s in this dimension, hooking up with this guy. I used the usual pickup lines, you know. I'm a time traveler, wanna see my space ship, watch me liquefy that dude's car with my laser gun-- you get it. After, when we were sharing a cigarette he asked me if I'm a time traveler, why I haven't killed Hitler yet. I told him that's what everyone's first goal is when they achieve time travel, they all wanna kill fucking Hitler. Every yokel with a gun could kill Hitler, it's not original-- and it's not fucking _hard_ , either. And it doesn't automatically create peace on fucking earth like people think it will-- but he didn't care about anything I had to say, he just thought I hadn't done it cause I _couldn't._ I told him I can do fucking anything, because I can, and he triple dog dared me to prove it. I figure, what's better than just _killing_ Hitler? Gaining his trust until I'm an official, taking over for him after a _tragic accident_ claims his life in a year's time, and turning the army on itself until it self-destructs. You know, like Inglorious Basterds? Have you seen Inglorious Basterds? Then I'd go back to the guy, who's been in a time stasis this whole time so the altered timeline won't effect him, and chuck a history textbook at his head before I bounce."

"You're killing Hitler to prove a point to your boyfriend?" Five asks incredulously, not bothering to keep his voice down despite where they were, and their track record with homosexuality. It was something about the timeline trying to preserve itself, where those of the past would glaze by people from alternate timelines unless directly effected. Two men walking through the halls-- especially when one was apparently as known as Rick had made himself-- was hardly an impact.

"He's not my _boyfriend_. We had a one night stand," Rick says. "I don't even remember his name. Phil, or something. Maybe it was Kevin... it doesn't matter, what matters is that he dared me and I'm gonna prove him fucking wrong."

"That makes it worse, so you know." Five takes a drink, casting a cursory glance around the manor. It didn't look like too much had been changed to the compound so far. No flags of the stranger's face, no modifications to the Uniform, salute, or artifacts littering the halls, all promising signs that maybe he wouldn't have as much trash to put right as he thought he would have to. Clean up was always the most annoying aspect to supervise, even if he didn't have to actually do it all himself. 

Unable to find a thing changed, Five glances over at the other man, "So what happens next? You go home, make dinner, and fall asleep? All that to prove a point to a guy you can't even remember the name of?"

"Yep," Rick says, pushing open the doors to a balcony that he leads Five out onto. "Watch this."

It's late at night, but there are still people in the streets, who all turn up to look at the figures that step out onto the balcony. A few of them begin to crowd around out of curiosity, and Rick cups his hands around his mouth and shouts in German at the top of his lungs, "PIMPS UP!" 

Without hesitation, the people on the streets all shout back with equal conviction, "HOES DOWN!"

Oh. There it is. Shit.

"You people can never resist, can you?" Five drawls, sounding exhausted and already memorizing the faces of everyone in the current crowd. It won't matter, they're very thorough, but still. It helps to know specific people to start off with when you're erasing an entire memory of a people. "I'm to assume it isn't just these poor bastards you taught that winner to?" He gestures to them with his drink without giving them much alternate attention. "How'd you convince Adolf of that?"

Rick is already in hysterics as soon as they're back inside, laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes. "It's their whole fucking slogan. The word ho didn't mean prostitute until the 1950s, I just beat 'em to it. I told em that-- well you know, zuhalter has a dual meaning as both pimp and 'one who procures' blah blah blah, so I told 'em the saying basically means 'we provide, you prosper.' We procure, they put their hoes down, to the earth, farm, you get it. It's not funny if you have to explain it."

"Alright, so the slogan, anything else I should know about?" Five asks, taking another drink, "Surely you have some sort of bust or statue somewhere. Those are usually the first to go up," He looks around, curiously. Was he being perhaps a bit too casual with the man? Probably, considering he'd left his rifle behind. But they hadn't turned to hostility yet. If they could remain casual, that would actually make things a lot easier on him.

"I don't like statues," Rick says. "But you know the nazi anthem horst-wessel-lied? I convinced them to change it to a song I wrote just for them-- I didn't actually write it, but you know. You ever heard the song 'two trucks having sex?' I ran it through like four translations and back into german-- beide maschinen sind bosartig, or 'both machines are vicious.' It's a commentary on the human condition. Also I invented glowsticks about twenty years early, and the national march to the third reich's honor isn't the goose step, it's the nay nay."

Five stops walking, staring incredulously at this man. This was the guy responsible for taking out an entire squadron of Agents? This was the man responsible for giving The Commission such a massive headache? He'd be impressed if he wasn't already hating the mess that he'd made of the entire timeline. It was situations like this where he wished a little flexibility was allowed: There were already an infinite number of timelines where the Reich went out with dignity, why not a few where they ended up looking like absolute morons? 

"So you're going to humiliate the Third Reich into collapse, is that what you meant earlier?" Five asks, still without moving.

"Oh no, I'm gonna make them literally fight themselves in a massive battle without realizing it. I'm just gonna humiliate them first," Rick says, sticking his hands in his pockets. He looks the other man up and down, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "You wanna help?"

Five looks at Rick curiously at the offer, tilting his head toward the other man as if he were surprised, "I'm here to stop that from happening," He reminds him, though there's not any conviction in his tone whatsoever. He may as well have been reminding Rick that the grass needed cut. "I have a reputation to maintain, which means I don't get to play around in timelines like a kid jumping through a sprinkler. Which begs the question, which timeline is yours?" It's an obvious play for information, but one without much nuance. He almost sounded genuinely curious.

"C-137," Rick says, without even hesitating. By now Five has been able to deduce that this guy isn't some wash-up even if he is an agent of chaos. He's not foolish enough to be tricked into giving his timeline out like candy to someone who can hop dimsneions and time. Which means that his decision to hand over the information-- provided its true --is a move purely out of confidence in his abilities to not get pinned down. Besides, it's not like the commission doesn't already have that information in his file. "You might be here to stop it, sure, but what's one more mess to clean up when you're done, right? Who's to say they'll be able to tell the difference between my chaos and yours if you're the one reporting it when all's said and done? Wouldn't it be nice to have a little fucking fun for once?"

"You say that as if you know for a fact I don't have fun," Five says sharply, eyes narrowing. Surely the other commission agents didn't meet this same fate? For all that his intentions here weren't entirely by-the-book Commission standard, he had to believe that the others at least entertained a conversation with the man: Unless that first shot genuinely sparked a fight that then involved in their death. And that was possible. Agents got panicky once fighting started, it was in their nature: Beings of time were notorious cowards.

"You have a mustache," Rick says, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Nobody with a mustache has fun regularly unless they also have abs. You got abs under that suit?"

Five's eyes narrow on him, the pad of his thumb tracing the rim of his glass, "At what point in the chaos do you plan on attacking me and getting this over with? Just so I know."

"We can figure that out later," Rick says, reaching out to grab and yank on the end of Five's tie. "After you unbutton a little bit. You're different from the rest of the guys who've come after me, I can tell that much already. You seem like you could actually be a good time if you let your mustache down. Come on, whaddya say?"

Five doesn't swat at Rick's hand or yank away at all, he just glares up at the other man with a scowl etched into his face. If his wrinkles were any indication, this glower was one of his favorite ones. He does take a step forward, though, crowding into Rick's space now, holding up a finger in a way that'd be threatening if it wasn't so goddamn maternal, "If I do this, you're going to make a list of all the shit you pull so I know what I have to clean up later, understood?"

"You got it," Rick grins. "Now come on, I've got something exciting to try out. It's something I was gonna save for a rainy day, but if you're here I gotta fast track. I'll take you to my ship."

It's just a hop skip and a jump across the manor before they get to the parking lot where, lo and behold, Rick just has his space ship parked out among all the fancy, sleek 1940s cars. He opens the door and bottles spill out onto the asphalt, and he settles behind the controls as Five circles around and gets in the other side. It smells like leather and liquor inside, and the ship itself sputters and chugs as it lifts up into the air. 

"So what do I call you? You got a codename, right? All those monkeys did," Rick says, leaning over the other man to pop open the glove compartment, pulling out a flask that he uncorks with his teeth and takes a swig from, before passing it over to Five.

Tipping his glass back, Five throws it behind him in the courtyard, ignoring the way it shatters into pieces on the blacktop as he climbs in. His nose twitches in a barely-concealed sneer as he shoves bottles and cans out of the way to make himself comfortable, not commenting on the fact it was a space ship, parked where everyone else could be, in the 19-fucking-40s.

"I don't do codenames," Five says, taking the flask when it was presented. "My given name is enough of one. I'm Number Five, but just call me Five. Saves syllables," He takes another long drink, pulling a face-- this stuff was considerably less smooth than the Nazi Reserve. Five sighs as he takes another slug, then hands the flask back, "And before we keep going, let's cut the shit and quit comparing me to the rest of those jackasses you killed. I wouldn't be here if I was anything like them, and I think you know that."

"Yeah, I figured. After they sent those twenty guys after me the last time I thought they finally learned their lesson. It's been a long time between them and you, before that group I was dealing with one of you cornballs every other week. It's been like ten months since then," he takes another drink from the flask and then caps it, sticking it in his pocket. "So what makes you so special that they're trying the lone gunman thing again? Is it the teleporting?"

"You should be flattered," Five says, "I'm the best they got." His eyes are sharp on the dashboard, on any piece of technology and detritus he can see, as if anything could be a clue. It could be, but how useful of clues they were was debatable. "It's partly the teleporting. Partly who I am as a person." Five glances at Rick, then, regarding the other man as he preps his literal space ship. Who even openly used spaceships nowadays? "I'm sure part of it was revenge, too. The Handler and I don't get along."

"Yeah? Me neither," Rick says as the ship takes off through the air. For all it sputtered getting off the ground, it flies smoothly through the sky, and Rick sets it into autopilot so he can turn slightly sideways, hooking his arm over the back of the sofa. "Did you get scouted by the commission too, or did you fall ass backwards into it?"

"I jumped time into a distant future and got stuck in an apocalypse when I lacked the energy to go back," Five admits, and he tries not to look moon-eyed at the stars around them, as if being in space wasn't altogether new for him, nonetheless so easily. There was usually so much more fanfare than this. "The Handler let me wait there for 40 years before she decided I was worth scouting. Some good it did me."

"Forty years!" Rick crows, throwing his head back with a mean laugh. "That's a fucking RIOT for someone who can time travel!"

"You'd have thought she'd do me the service of going back to an earlier point once I proved myself capable of surviving a goddamn dystopia. Apparently they wanted me as I am now," He gestures, bitter and cruel, to himself, "What I wouldn't give to be in my thirties with a goddamn shower."

"And you know there's still nothing stopping them," Rick says. "At any point they could go back and pick you up sooner. _I_ could go back and pick you up and eliminate this whole timeline from ever even happening. That's the thing about the Commission, they get in their heads about what the correct timeline is but it's all fucking arbitrary. They decided that the timeline from their original dimension was the _right_ one, but there's no objective middle ground of the multiverse. Everyone thinks their timeline of events is the right one, the Commission's just the assholes who got up the balls to act on it."

He glances over at Five again, clearly bitter himself. "So how many years is your contract?"

"Five," He says, then pulls a face, "Though with some luck after this, it should be shortened considerably. With time done, I could be out of there in as few as six months," Five sucks on a tooth, "That would require her living up to her end of _any_ bargain, though. How well do you know her? Do you go back? She said they'd tried to scout you and you turned them down." Five turns to the man curiously now, too, content with their position hovering in space.

"Yeah, organized government isn't exactly my scene, in case you didn't notice," Rick says, doing an extremely lazy, seated nay nay for emphasis. "But I was curious, so I let her give me the tour. We fucked in a broom closet, and then I bounced the next day. Partially the government thing, partially because I found out I wasn't even the first fucking Rick they tried to recruit, I was just the first one to actually hear them out, which I guess makes me the sucker. I just wanted to know what they were about."

"Really?" Five asks, clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes. He looks at the ceiling of the ship, regarding the dome curiously. It gave a good view, at least. "Of course you slept with her. She has a type, it would seem," He looks annoyed. Not really with her sleeping with multiple men. "Then I'm sure she figured this was a win/win for her. Either way, an ex-fuck dies." Five sneers, leaning firmly back into the chair, tugging at his tie. "If I had any other option, I would have taken it. If I could go back myself I would have eons ago. If I could figure out the goddamn math." He practically spits.

"Go back where?" Rick asks, glancing curiously over at the other man. "Where are you trying to get back to?"

There's a hesitation, and then he seems to relent. What did it hurt, right? "March 24th, 2017," Five recites, "Something in that week triggers the apocalypse in my timeline."

"And you wanna stop it, or participate?" Rick asks, propping his elbow on the back of the cushion, and props his chin on his fist.

Five's head snaps to him, sneering visibly, "My entire family dies in whatever takes out the world. I'm going to stop it and keep them safe."

Something in Rick's chest unspools at the sincerity in Five's tone, and suddenly the idea of taking him off to do some random bullshit to nazis doesn't seem so fun anymore. He leans forward and turns off autopilot, and the ship shudders to a stop in midair, just hovering there. 

"March 24th, 2017?" he says, punching in a few numbers on his console. "I can take you there."

"What?" Five's eyes go to the console, watching Rick punch in numbers. His eyes widen, and he stares, dumbfounded, at the ship anew: as if being a discrete, functioning space ship for casual intergalactic travel wasn't enough. "How? Just like that?"

"Yeah," Rick says. "What's your dimension?"

"My dimension?" Five repeats, and that's where he feels his heart chug in his chest. His fucking dimension. "My travel never required me know my dimension," He says bitterly after a tense silence. He feels like the wind was taken from his lungs, the sudden wave of hope followed by a crash of failure. "Of course it's not that easy."

Rick feels a twist in his chest that he frankly, fucking hates. He doesn't know this guy, not really, but then again-- he pretty much does. He has a pretty good grip on what the Commission does to people on an objective basis, and it's not hard for him to piece together what sort of hell this guy's been through. Surviving some apocalypse for 40 years that he wants to get back to and prevent, to save his family... it's all grotesquely familiar. Suddenly all he wants to do is give this guy a win, if only to live vicariously through it. Fuck hitler, fuck the nazis, fuck his stupid pride with whatever the fuck that guy's name was. 

"Alright. Hang on," he mutters, lowering the ship down to the ground. They're in the middle of the forest somewhere, and when he gets out Five does as well. Rick pulls out another gun that doesn't look dangerous particularly, and he opens a big green portal underneath the ship, vanishing it out from under them. He fiddles with the dials and opens a second portal and hops through, and after a moment he sticks his head back through to see Five still standing there. "Well, come on," he jerks his head towards the portal and ducks back through it. 

Joined moments later by Five, they find themselves right back in the same bar where they met. The melted piece of the bar has long since hardened back into a weird drippy shape like candle wax, and Rick's in the process of picking up Five's rifle, exactly where he left it. He turns around to hold it out to the man, and once he takes it, he opens another much smaller portal, and tosses the same gun that had just created that portal right through it. 

"Can't help you without knowing the dimension you're from, but you can at least finish your job. Maybe then you'll get out of the commission in months like you said, right?" he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Five takes the gun when it's handed to him, looking surprised and confused at the series of events. Sharp eyes scan the bar, looking for any discrepancies that could imply this was an alternate sub-dimension of the one he was trying to actually prevent. He needed to prevent Rick from fucking with Hitler in that dimension in order for it to count-- nevermind that killing the man seemed like sort of.... a waste. After all, they'd had such a good conversation, and he certainly hadn't seemed like he _wanted_ to die. 

"What's going on? You're just going to let me shoot you?" Five says, sounding skeptical. His hands are on his rifle, but he's definitely not pointing it at the man, confusion evident on his face, "Why."

"Cause your day's sucked so far," Rick shrugs, arms still crossed. "You got some hero shit to get to down the line, and the commission's literally never going to stop hunting me until either they win or I win. And I really don't want some donkey in a suit to be the one to get me. You suddenly getting cold feet? What about your dimension, huh? You've got an apocalypse to get back to, you really gonna jeopardize that for some target?"

"Don't flatter yourself. I don't have a _problem_ killing you," Five sneers, and brings the rifle up against his shoulder. He doesn't bring it up with a wild swing of anger though, but rather slowly, methodically, making sure to check every latch and lever until it settles familiarly on his shoulder. Five peers down the scope, then again aims it to the side, "But you'll have to excuse me if I don't think you're playing some sort of game, here." He glances behind him, as if a portal could have reformed, maybe bringing the ship and gun and whatever else with it? Was this a test?

"No games," Rick shrugs again. "My ship and portal gun are the only ways I have out of this dimension, and I just chucked both of those. I'm nothin' but flesh, baby. Just do me one favor when you get back to the commission. After you knock the Handlers fucking socks off by being the one asshole to get the job done, tell her I had one last message for her. Bring her in real close, let her think you're about to tell her my dying words were about some feelings I had for her, and then head butt her right between the eyes as hard as you can."

Five's lips twitch in the stutterings of what might have actually been a smile for the first time since they'd begun talking. Rifle up, Rick's head in his sights, Five pulls back the hammer, steadying the sway of his arm, "Is there a codeword or something I can say in case another one of you decides to ruin my day? So we can cut all the crap?"

"We're not a hivemind," Rick laughs harshly. "But if you wanna get a leg up on almost any Rick, threaten his Morty. He'll either get so mad at you he'll be stupid, or he'll be so busy laughing at the idea that you think he cares about him that you can get the drop on him."

"Morty. Got it. See you around, Rick," Five says, lifts the gun, and shoots. It's his first time shooting someone live since the surgery, and he certainly doesn't feel anything super human about the way his bullet pierces Rick's skull. Immediately turning around, expecting a retaliatory volley, he's only slightly let down when there's none to behold. 

Teleporting over to the crumpled man, Five squints at his body from afar, inspecting him as closely as he can for anything possibly dangerous. When he finds nothing and Rick stays dead, Five huffs a low noise of what could possibly be disappointment before standing upright again. A slim, black flip phone snaps into his hand, and he presses the call without looking, eyes still focused on Rick's cooling corpse, "Hello, Dispatch? This is Number Five. Rick Sanchez has been eliminated, case number X-173-295-Z. Clean up crews required." He hangs up without so much as a goodbye or thank you. 

It's only after that Five curses under his breath, head snapping back to Rick's lifeless corpse, the lights of The Commission's men beginning to swarm the building, "You didn't give me that fucking list," He hisses, kicking his body, for good measure.

"You got him," the cleanup crew is awed as they stand over the corpse of the man, eyes still open and staring blindly upwards. "Can't believe you actually got him. I've been on so many of the cleanups of him killing our guys, how'd you do it? Did you corner him in here? Was it a huge fight? Did you wear him down or sneak up on him?"

A conversationalist, delightful.

"Aren't you forensics? Do you really need my help piecing together the scene?" He snaps, voice sharp and agitated. He points at the corpse, "See that hole in his head? I shot him. With this gun," He raises his opposite hand, the one on the rifle. "Does it look like there was a fight? Does there even look to be a struggle? Give me something fucking hard to do." Five snarls and turns on his heel, marching off.

He's brought back to the commission HQ feeling... different. And yet he barely has shoes on the ground when he's already being summoned to the Handler's office, before he's even had a chance to change his clothes or turn in his briefcase. As soon as he makes it through the doors, she stands up from behind her desk, a look of bewilderment on her face. 

"Is it true? You actually got him?" she asks, circling around in front of her desk with a sort of breathless excitement. "You killed Rick Sanchez?"

"Looks like I'm still without equal," Five says, setting the briefcase down against the wall. He tugs the collar of his suit flat. "One of these days you'll stop looking so surprised." He drawls, tilting his head to the woman.

"It's not that I _doubted_ you, Five," she croons with a pout that makes him angry. "It's just that Sanchez killed more than two dozen of our agents, some of which were in the top 10th percentile of the entire company. It's a relief to have him wiped off the map, the commission will be safer overall for it, I'm just... surprised. I think some part of me got convinced he couldn't die."

"What's the quote? 'The song has ended, but the melody lingers on'?" Five says with fake politeness, hands clasped neatly in front of him as he regards The Handler. Knowing that this was just a little game she played with all the toys she found for herself, Five felt a little better taking the lead on his own time at The Commission, especially knowing how close he was to getting what he wanted today, still a bitter sting in his chest. 

Raising his chin, Five regards The Handler down the line of his nose, "I accomplished this mission. Have you organized my payment?"

She sucks in a breath through her teeth, looking not sorry at all. In fact her grimace could easily be mistaken for a smile. "About that," she says, mirroring his position by clasping her own hands together in front of her skirt. "I put in the order, had all the paperwork signed and everything, in triplicate, mind you, but.... the higher ups denied the request. My hands are tied, Five." She offers him a placid smile before reaching out to pat him on the shoulder. "But just think about the accolades you'll get for being the one to kill Sanchez-- really, we're all _very_ impressed. That was one tough cookie you turned to crumbs for us."

Five's body goes cold like it was doused in ice, and his shoulder flinches out from The Handler's hand, staring at her with a look of shock, a smidge of betrayal. He should have seen this happening. Disgustingly, Five can't even feel the soul-crushing pain he felt earlier when he was let down. 

A larger part of him must have known agreeing to anything The Commission offered him was going to be a sack of shit. In his chest, his heart thuds heavy enough that he can hear it in his ears, "They can't deny it," Five says, voice dangerously quiet. "I took part in their experiment. I killed your man. I held up my side of the arrangement."

She gives a dramatic sigh, shaking her head with a smile and a shrug. "I don't know what to tell you, Five. I pulled for you, _really_ I did. I _told_ them you'd get our man, and look! You did. I'm sure the next time an opportunity like this comes around, they'll take this into account and they won't deny you again. Besides, what's just a couple more years for a time traveler? You're a crisp young, what, 58? You've got plenty of get up and go left in you, you're not about to expire in the next two and a half years before your contract is up!"

Five drags his tongue over his lower lip, nodding slowly as his gaze slips from The Handler to the ground, nodding thoughtfully as the churning slurry in his stomach hardens to resolve. "You have a point," He says with a terse, simperingly-fake smile, "What's two more years with friends?" Bowing at the waist, Five turns on his heel to collect his briefcase from the wall, stopping mid-stride to face The Handler again, contemplative look on his face.

"Actually," he says, hesitating. Glancing over his shoulder, he goes to the door of The Handler's office, shutting it with a derisive click, "Rick Sanchez said something, right before he died. He seemed to know you sent me. I got the impression you two were.... close?"

That definitely gets her attention. She stops short, looking towards Five with wide eyes. "I _told_ you not to talk to him," she scolds, turning to face him completely. But she doesn't seem all that upset by the news, in fact it very evidently seems to be an attempt to save face. She clears her throat, clicking her heel to the ground. "He told you that?"

"I thought a clean shot through the forehead was too good for the man who killed 41 Agents," Five admits, "I clipped enough of him to cause bleeding and hemorrhaging, but not enough that he would die quick. It was only when he was going out that he said anything at all," He looks away, as if ashamed of his actions, lies that they were. "He didn't need to tell me explicitly how he felt, but..." 

Five glances around the room, then gestures for The Handler to cross the space between them.

She does so quickly, coming directly into his space and pressing her hands to her chest. "He said something about me while he was dying?" she lowers her voice conspiratorially. "Tell me, what did he say?"

The iron of his chest sings of victory as he looks up at the woman, practically towering over him thanks to her heels. His gut clenches unpleasantly, as he struggles to keep his voice some semblance of neutral. "Well--" He hums, and just can't help himself. Leaning back, Five slams his head into the bridge of the Handler's nose, so hard he can feel someone's bone crunch, and his face (aside from throbbing) seems fine. 

Hands tucked in his pockets, back straightening, Five steps away from The Handler with his face drawn with furious resolve, "His words, Handler. Not mine."

It sounds like a threat.

She splutters in shock, holding her forehead and nose with a shriek of surprise, which quickly morphs into anger. It doesn't matter if that was actually Rick's last words or Five's childish attempt to get even with her for the request falling through (although it's more likely the former considering he would have had no way to know about her and Rick's history unless Rick told him) the anger fills her regardless. 

"You little--" she starts, but he's already gone as soon as she takes a single step, briefcase and all.


	2. Chapter 2

By now, Five has learned that being called to the Handlers office never goes well. If he's just getting a normal job, he gets it from the usual source. If the Handler is calling him in, it's either an attempt to seduce him again (which only works about 20% of the time) or she has something to be smug about. It's almost always the latter. But he also knows he can't avoid her when she calls for him, so he has no choice but to drag ass up to her office with as much decorum and self respect as he can muster in the face of the woman. 

"Oh, Five, there you are," she says, already looking horribly smug when he walks in. "Do close the door behind you, won't you?"

She pulls a tiny remote out of her desk and humming to herself, she taps a couple buttons. A panel in her book case large enough for a tv screen opens, and displays the screen, currently black, as she circles around to sit on the front of her desk. 

"I just have a few questions for you, Five," she says, crossing her ankles daintily. "Firstly, how are you feeling? Physically, emotionally... psychologically? _Do_ open up, there's no wrong answers."  
  
Five hasn't seen much of her since he headbutted her with a silent underline to go right to Hell, but unfortunately she looks as unscathed-- and as unbothered-- as ever when he enters. His face is its usual poker-like set of a deadpan glare, and he closes the door behind himself even as she's asking. Annoying, since it made him look subservient to her, but he supposed that was the point of asking for such an obvious chore.

Hands slip into his pockets, and he silently watches the fanfare with an unimpressed quirk of his brow. As if he hadn't seen technology similar-- arguably better, really-- in his time at The Commission. Moving bookcases were hardly the most impressive thing they had on their docket. 

"Now that you mention it, I am feeling a bit anxious. I never like to waste time," And he smiles at her, with absolutely no joy in his eyes.  
  
"Well, then I'll be sure to get on with it, just for you," she simpers with a sneering smile. "You remember Sanchez, don't you? Of course you do. You killed him-- oh, what was it, 15 days ago now? Curious how time flies. _Any-_ whoodle, take a look at this and tell me what you see?"

She pushes a button on the remote and the tv screen turns on, displaying an image of what is definitely Rick, or _some_ version of Rick (as he'd spoken very confidently about the multiverse) transporting containers of something onto his space ship, walking up and down a metal ramp with a young boy helping him. The Handler folds her hands back in her lap over the remote and gives Five that same humorless smile.  
  
Five watches the screen for a while, a sour look on his face. He notes the young boy, almost curiously, remembering the words of the last Rick he'd talked to. That must be Morty. "You really can't keep these Ricks out of your timelines, huh? Even ones from alternate dimensions want to mess with you." 

Walking over to the television curiously, hands still in his pocket, Five squints at the screen, as if he could actually discern anything by getting closer except the grains in the film. "Tell me, did you fuck this one, too? Or was that special for the last guy?" He looks over his shoulder.  
  
"Cute," the Handler says flatly. "Listen."

An alien comes trotting up the ramp and addresses the Rick. "Thanks again for giving us all your portal fluid, Mr. Sanchez. I hope all that nubedonium treats you well. Just here to triple check the dimension so we send you to the right place, it's C-137 right?"

"That's the place," Rick says as the young boy climbs into the back seat of the ship. "You the man, Perjerat!" he says, high-low fist bumping the alien before climbing into the driver's seat. A moment later a portal is shot in front of the ship from off screen, and the ship flies through the hole, vanishing with a pop, and the Handler pauses the recording with a sly little smile.  
  
Five's face settles into a scowl the longer the video goes on. Something settles in his chest. Anger. He'd _shot_ Rick Sanchez, between the eyes, no funny business. He'd _specifically_ said no funny business. His nostrils flare, and he turns to look at The Handler with a look that was more ice than it had been prior, when a bit of smug satisfaction still existed in him. Now there is none.  
  
"That's not possible," Five says, tone abrupt, "I _killed_ C-137 Rick. You had his body cleaned up." They had the receipts to prove it: And The Commission was all about receipts, "Is this another one that took his place in the dimension?"  
  
"Oh, I bet you wish it was," the Handler croons with a patronizing little pout. "Tell me, Five. We gave you all these modifications to try and enhance your abilities-- to make you a better _killer_. It certainly seems like we've made you better at _something_ , but who knew it would be resurrections! That's sort of the opposite of what we do here, though, so-- care to explain?"  
  
Indignation rises like bile in Five's throat, and it sits there and burns uncomfortable as he turns back to the TV, mouth twisting into a scowl. "I already told you the explanation. There's a mistake." He points at the screen, eyes never once leaving The Handler's face, that smug little smile making him want to collapse on himself like a dying star. Or making him want to collapse the _Handler_ on herself like a dying star, is more accurate. "I _killed_ him. I shot him in the face. You want me to clean up another Rick Sanchez mess, fine. Gladly. With pleasure. But I killed C-137."  
  
"Don't let the door hit you on the way out," she says, waving him towards the door, which he gladly storms towards with so much fire in his footsteps it's a wonder the carpet doesn't go up in ash behind him. But he's stopped just as he touches the door knob with a laugh from the Handler. "And to think, if your request for time off had gone through? After such an embarrassment like this! Oh, the Commission would have been ashamed that you tricked us into letting you go. Run along now, be quick about it."  
  
Five can hear the crack in his neck as he tilts it to the side without answering the woman, yanking open the door with a force so strong it makes the hinges groan. Slamming it shut behind him with all the decorum of a toddler, Five teleports directly home instead of wasting time walking, grabs his things and then teleports directly to the Briefcase Room, barking at the attendant and impatiently slapping down his work order. 

He barely stops moving as he sets the briefcase to the time and date, and doesn't stop moving even once he's teleported to a warehouse district in some very human-looking universe near sundown. He could be anywhere on the outskirts of any city. Not that it mattered. With the fire currently boiling up in Five's stomach, he would have shot the man in broad daylight on a busy city street.  
  
Luckily, it's not hard to find him. It seems that despite evidently being on the Commission's hitlist, he's not at all concerned with laying low. Maybe he actually thought that he'd gotten away with his faked death (provided that this is C-137 and not the Commission screwing up its own information) so he thought he had no more reason to hide, or perhaps whatever makes him fucking immortal gives him a careless sort of confidence. Whatever the case, Five doesn't have a difficult time asking for him by name whatsoever. 

He's directed to a strip club of all places, where he's informed Rick is inside by the man at the door, who only just barely makes a cursory attempt to tell Five that he can't go inside without being "on the list," but his resolve shrivels immediately when Five gives him a glower like shards of glass, and he waves him through. 

Even in the dimly lit space, it's not hard to spot Rick. Between that same lab coat he's wearing and that iconic hair, it's easy to pick him out of the crowd even through the fog of sweat and glitter and smoke, while aliens jiggle around on the shiny black stages. He's sitting beside a young boy who's squirming in place as he watches the aliens on stage, mouth agape and eyes wide. 

Five barely moves within the shadows, but Rick's eyes dart to the source of the movement immediately. There's something instinctive in him perhaps that can sense danger, or maybe it was just a coincidence. But he sees Five, and any possibility that this was a different Rick disappears in the time it takes for Rick's face to go slack in a harrowed expression of recognition and realization.  
  
Five had waited for literally any indication that this was a different man who deserved the benefit of the doubt: And frankly, even that was more than he deserved. When he sees none-- and in fact seems to actually _recognize_ him-- it immediately sets his blood to boil. Five doesn't cross the space between them. He doesn't care about the aliens. He doesn't even really care about the fact he's here with a little kid who looks like he was having his first sexual awakening. 

What he _does_ care about is the blue haired asshole who'd lied to him and couldn't even give him the respect of a goddamn month before getting himself in shit. He cares about the smug gleam in The Handler's eye when she'd told him he fucked up. He _cares_ about his goddamn reputation.

"You _lied_ to me, Rick!" Five roars over the boom of the music, and slams both of his briefcases on the bar. For all he cared, the protest of the bartender didn't matter. Too close for a sniper, Five instead pulls out two gleaming, silver pistols, which he immediately fires at the man-- "Shouldn't have done that!"  
  
The bar erupts into chaos. Strippers and other patrons go running from the main room screaming, as Rick throws up some kind of plasma shield that catches the bullets like a baseball mitt. He stands up and throws the booth he'd been sitting at over to make cover, immediately dropping behind it with the boy and a growl of anger. 

"I didn't lie! Technically!" he shouts, as another bullet whizzes overhead and gets stuck in the wall. "Stop SHOOTING you old bastard! I thought we had something special!"

Whipping around to fire off a couple shots with his laser pistol, he aims not for the man himself but instead at the bar behind him, exploding multiple bottles in a shower of glass and liquor in a wild hope of distracting the man. Lord knows he was probably too professional for that, but it was worth a shot.  
  
"R-Rick--?!" Morty yelps as he ducks under the table, hands covering his head. 

The bouncer slams open the door with a shout at the first sign of bullets, and earns two sharp, near-death experiences for the effort, the door slamming quickly shut behind him as the goon backs out the way he came. That was something he appreciated about alien planets. Their discretion was truly bar none, especially in places like this.

"Something SPECIAL doesn't matter when you FUCK my kill count!" Five snarls as he continues to levy shots at the shield. He could teleport over there. He could probably even kick the man's ass if it came to a one on one, physical throw down. But there was something very satisfying in shooting at him. Almost poetic, if he had to think about it: Rick could finally go out the way he planned to. With a shot in his goddamn face.

There's a lull where he runs out of ammo, and with a quiet, "Shit," He grabs his briefcases and teleports to another side of the room, kicking over his own table and throwing his briefcase down, reloading his gun with a spare clip on his belt as he fires again. "You know, the worst thing about it is, I felt _bad_ for killing you the first time!" Five snarls, throwing his gun down when it uselessly runs out of ammo, again, his shots all coming eerily close, but nothing that would say he was actually planning on breaking the shield.

"I thought--" Five says as he grabs the slimmer briefcase, revealing the pristine, oiled gleam of his sniper rifle, "Gee! Here's a guy who knows what he's talking about," Five's still shouting over the music, "We probably could have come up with a better solution than death," He clicks the pieces of his rifle together, each part making the entire thing more and more insidious, despite the neon-pink gleam that reflected off of its sight. "But you _lied_ to me! Some connection!"   
  
The heavy stabilizer of the gun comes down on the table Five was hiding behind, and the powerful BANG of his shot is almost painful in the small room-- The bullet blowing a massive crater in the drywall just above Rick's head. It might have even trimmed a few hairs.  
  
"JEEzus christ--" Rick hisses, ducking down further, and he shoves Morty down by his face. "Just-- keep your fucking head down, Morty--" 

Fiddling with a dial on his gun, he whips back around and fires his laser pistol at the table Five is hiding behind, setting it ablaze and forcing the man to teleport elsewhere to keep from being engulfed, himself. Why he hasn't just teleported to his side to try and take him out close range, he doesn't know-- he can only assume the man is _enjoying_ himself. 

"If you'd just LISTEN to me, you crusty son of a bitch, I could explain!" he shouts back, ejecting the heat sink from his gun and popping in a new one. "You DID kill me! If you go back to the morgue at commission and open the ice box they put me in, my body will still be there! I didn't lie about a fucking thing!"  
  
"Don't you think I know that!" Five snarls as he reappears, sniper in hand, behind the bar. His gun swivels, and with another massive bang the music cuts off with an electronic pop and sizzle of sparks. The silence is almost worse after so much noise, but it doesn't stop Five from discharging his gun and repriming it, looking down the scope. "And yet HERE you are--"

A pair of wide, scared eyes peek over the flipped table, and Five's smile turns mean-- "What was it you said, Rick? HEY MORTY--"

"W-Wha-- me?" Morty asks head raising just a few more inches over the table. It was all Five needed.

Another explosive crack fires, this time exploding the wall not one inch from Morty's head.  
  
"WHOA-- HEY!" Rick's voice turns furious as he shoves Morty belly down on the ground, kneeling in the center of his back. He shoots back at Five, knocking the hat right off his head, his laser so close to scalp that Five could feel the sear against his skin. It might even have been enough for a mild first degree burn. "You motherFUCKER if you got beef with me FINE but _can it_ for my fucking grandson, it's his birthday! Just let me send him home in a fucking portal and we can duke it out like adults! He's fucking fifteen!" 

He knows it's his own fault. He'd been the one to tell Five to target Mortys if he wants to get at a Rick-- but he hadn't meant _his_ Morty, god damn it. Sure he might bully the kid until he cries on a regular basis, but Morty is _his_ tragic fuck-up to obliterate and no one else's.  
  
Morty yelps as he hits the ground, immediately covering his head from the shot even as Rick's knee grinds into his shoulders and he can feel the dust from the drywall behind him, "Rick, who IS THIS GUY??" Morty says, his voice breaking in panic as he painfully pulls his head to the side so he can be heard, "Why is he trying to KILL US, we didn't _do_ anything!" At least when they usually get shot at on these missions Morty knows to anticipate it. This had actually gone right. It was supposed to be a lighthearted trade, no guns needed, and then party with the cash for his birthday. And now he was getting shot at.  
  
"His name is Five, he's a temporal assassin and he's after ME," Rick shouts his answer to Morty's question so Five can hear it too. "NOT you. He's a FAMILY MAN who's not about to ASSASSINATE a fucking _teenager_ to get back at me for the petty ass fucking GRUDGE he holds against your GRANDPA, IS HE FIVE?!"  
  
"MAKE A FUCKING PORTAL, SANCHEZ!" Five roars in response, hating the way his stomach had clenched up as soon as he'd heard Rick's words the first time. His shots had gotten slower, more reluctant. And now, hearing the voice-breaking anxiety from the boy on the ground, combined with the possessive fury in Rick's voice-- Yeah. Fine. He yanks the gun away.

"A TEMPORAL ASSASSIN?" Morty yelps, voice breaking and embarrassingly echoing with the newfound silence that came from the momentary ceasefire. "Why'd he target _me?_ Why is he HERE, we haven't even DONE anything in time for months--"  
  
Rick quickly pulls the portal gun out and twists the dials. "Shut up, Morty," he growls. "I'll explain later. You'll be fine at home, just-- drop the blast shields around the house." He opens a portal, the bright glow of which he can see from behind the booth they're hiding behind for cover. Rick doesn't say anything to Morty, he just kneels off his back, grabs him by the back of the shirt and waistband of his jeans, and throws him through the glowing disc like a lawn dart. 

He supposes he could have followed through, but he knows Five would have just come after him wherever they went. He's either going to have to kill the man himself, or talk him down, and so the portal closes with the sound of Morty's yelp of fright and confusion cutting off with it. 

"No more guns!" he shouts back at Five. "I'm putting mine down and I'm gonna come out from cover, alright? Don't FUCKING shoot me."

It's a hail mary, but worst comes to worse, Five shoots him and he goes back home and they resume this dance in about 15 minutes until Five gets the picture. So he holsters his pistol in his jacket and holds his hands up, stepping up from around the booth with his hands raised in the air.  
  
"So what," Five says. Where Rick had put his gun down, Five had yet to do the same, the stock still digging painfully into his shoulder. He was certain it was bruised from stabilizing kickback already, but that didn't exactly stop him from holding his sights firm. Even then, Rick could see his finger was nowhere near the trigger, resting flat against the barrel even while he looks plenty menacing from behind it, "You're a cyborg? AI? Sentient _ghost_ with clones to spare?" Five's voice is a demanding growl. "Paint me a fucking picture."  
  
"Try fucking super genius, tough guy," Rick says flatly, still holding his hands up. "You think a genius can't figure out how to cure death? I'm fucking infinite, baby. And I know how to do it for anyone. I could do it for you, too, if you walk away from this. You wanna be immortal? You want infinite chances to get back to your family? Cause if you bite the big one this close to the finish line-- that'd fucking suck."  
  
Finish line. Five remembers their conversation in the ship, the promise of his freedom in five months. That'd been why Rick had let him kill him, wasn't it? So he could secure his time off?

An annoyed snarl leaves Five as he finally lifts the rifle up, engaging the safety and all but throwing it on the bar, "'Finish line' my ass, I still have two and a half years," He says. There's no motion to pull out any knives or smaller, sneakier guns, so it's pretty safe to say the threat had been neutralized.  
  
"Listen, we can do this forever. You can put a bullet in my brain every time we meet, and I'll just keep coming back," Rick says. "Sure, maybe I wasn't forthfuckingcoming about my immortality, but to be fair-- _you_ didn't ask." He walks closer, stepping over broken wood and shattered glass, letting his hands drop to cross his arms over his chest instead. "They didn't give you the time off after all, huh?"  
  
"Of course not," Five snaps, leaning heavily back against the partially-destroyed ruin of the bar. His arms cross as he levies another glare at the other man, not that it was his fault. "Like I said. Should have known better than to trust The Commission to follow through with anything that doesn't directly effect them." His fingers dig into the fabric of his suit, and he glances down long enough to see his hat, smoldering faintly. Lips twitching, he bends down to pick it up, dusting it off on his knee and inspecting it. 

Ruined, Five looks up at Rick pointedly before throwing it into the strip club to join the rest of the refuse from their fight. "You could have given me some heads up before I headbutted The Handler in your fucking honor."  
  
"You actually did it?" Rick grins, his arms dropping. "You crazy son of a bitch."

His grin doesn't last, though, when Five just keeps glaring at him, and he sighs, annoyed. Vaulting himself over the bar, he grabs a bottle of alien liquor that hadn't been smashed in the fight, and pulls out the glass stopper before pouring two generous portions into two glasses he pulls up from under the bar. 

"Okay, so, you're here. You obviously don't really want me dead, or I'd be dead again by now. You're not after Morty, or you wouldn't have let him leave. So what is this? Pride?" he asks, handing one of the glasses across the bar to Five. "Revenge? I didn't do shit to you. I did you a _favor_ \-- or tried to, anyway."  
  
"Technically a mission, " Five admits, taking the glass when it's offered and slugging it back, throwing the glass at the mirror behind the bar and finding just a little satisfaction at the shattering of both objects in response. Reaching over, he yanks one of the bottles from Rick's side and brings it to his lips, taking a heavy pull. Oh, how the turntables.

Releasing with a heavy groan, Five sets the bottle on the table, then glances at Rick, "Maybe a little revenge. The Handler looks so fucking smug when she thinks she has something on you. And this?" He gestures to the bar, to Rick, nebulously, "Caught on camera. Whatever delivery you were doing. She really liked rubbing that in." He dissolves into another angry snarl as he takes another heavy pull.  
  
"I didn't think they'd still be looking for me, especially so soon after I died," Rick admits, knocking his own glass back with a shudder. Not his favorite, but liquor is liquor. "I didn't even fuck anything up, we're not even on _earth_ right now. Do they usually send you places that aren't earth? Knowing that bitch, she was _looking_ for anything to use against you. Any Rick to throw you at, and she just happened to find me."

He sighs angrily, running his hand through his hair. "We gotta figure out a way to put this to rest once and for all, or this is just gonna keep happening. The commission can't kill me permanently, not even _you_ can kill me permanently, and I can't keep fighting one of you motherfuckers off every other week, I've got shit to do. I'm open to ideas."  
  
Taking a third acidic, horrible drink, Five sets the bottle on the bar ahead, pulling a face and clearing his throat as he does, "Here's the thing. They don't usually send me to timelines like this. They're too outside Commission jurisdiction. Their thing is finding one timeline and setting it, then working back from there. This?" He gestures to the alien bar, the foreign language blinking in neon on the abandoned stage, "This is too outside their realm. Which means, you're right. They aren't looking for time anomalies, they're looking for _you_."

He smiles, bitter and cold as he squints at the glass bottle in his hand. The liquor inside looked like an oil slick. Maybe he shouldn't've drank so much so fast, "But then I got to thinking. What's the Commission care about one guy for? No offense, I mean, you're a fucking _nuisance_ to the timeline, but if you're not actively fucking with past lives, why bother hunting you like a dog? Why send _me_ , when there are probably about 100 cases that would be better for an Agent with my track record? And then it hit me."

At that, Five leans over the table, a finger hitting the table with a definitive tap, "This isn't Commission work. This is for the Handler. She has motive to want you dead. She has access. And most importantly, I haven't been getting this information from the tubes. I've been getting it straight from her fucking mouth." Five leans back, grabbing the bottle again, "So as far as I'm concerned, _fuck_ it. They didn't give me the time off, this isn't official business, they can go fuck themselves."  
  
Rick grins again, and takes the man's smoldering hat. He pulls his ray gun back out of his jacket and flips a dial, and shoots the hat a second time-- but this time, it reverses the damages. The fibers mend back together, torn and burnt cloth healing like tissue, and he reaches across the bar to pop the hat back on his head. 

"That's the fucking spirit," he says triumphantly. "You gonna lie or just tell her it's not worth your fucking time?"  
  
"I'll probably lie. Tell her you got away and I ran out of juice. Not like the crime scene doesn't support that, anyway," Five drawls, reaching a hand up to touch his hat, miraculously free of smoldering remnants as he regards the bar. "That way, when you show up again-- which I'm sure you will-- she can send me out to hunt you, we can shoot the shit for a couple hours, and I'll go right back and say you got away again. Eventually she'll figure out I'm full of crap, but what can she do? _Fire_ me?"  
  
Rick laughs loudly at that. "You wanna get started on shooting that shit?" he offers, glancing up at the clock on the wall, written in an alien language. "Because we've probably got about five minutes before the authorities show up here to figure out what went wrong, and I don't feel like getting arrested today."  
  
Five glances, too, but already knows he won't be able to tell the time. So he pushes away from the bar with a telletale old-man grunt, grabbing his briefcase from where he'd slammed it dramatically down a few feet away. "Why the hell not?" He mutters, inputting a time into the case, "Your grandson good for two hours?" He asks, holding the briefcase out for Rick to take alongside him. 

Rick doesn't answer before the suitcase engages, warping them back to the same bar, just a few hours before either of them arrived. They're gone before their past selves walk back in the door, considerably happier than when they'd walked in.


	3. Chapter 3

The Handler knows something is up at this point, but she can't and won't prove it, which is sweet of her. After six months of them doing this dance, she knows Rick can't possibly be getting away this many times. Surely one would have killed the other by now. But without anyone else capable and apparently willing to go along with this scheme, it seemed they were in a bit of a deadlock. As far as the Handler was concerned, Five was just being inept on purpose-- not because he was actively defying her by making friends with the very many she'd sent him to kill.

And what a mistake that had been on her part, too. With their misunderstanding and betrayal out of the way, Rick and Five actually got along swimmingly. Great minds with vastly different experiences, with a core of familiarity between them, bred the kind of companionship one didn't often find in their lifetime. Their time spent together was often filled with drinking and laughter, and a lot of very intense problem solving. Rick's inventions, Five's time travel, they both became intimate with one another's systems, in ways only like-minded people could become.

In the way twins do, during one particularly drunken diatribe into their various inventions and calculations, they made the discovery that their math actually had one common root variable, one that only Rick and Five had utilized, a pseudo-placeholder when calculating concepts beyond space and time and relativity. A catch all for their particular brand of fuckery. And these assholes extrapolated on it.  
  
It had grown to the point where Five and Rick could say, easily and without doubt, that they _knew_ one another. Their moods, if not their tells; The whirring of their brains, if not its contents. It's a night like that for Five, tonight. It'd actually been a _couple_ nights like that for Five. Usually, at most, he could string along a mission to last about three days. Four, if the subject was particularly wily; which Rick was. And yet, for all the time in the world they had to relax and kick back, Five had spent two of the four days in an annoyed bundle, leg bouncing as they spoke arbitrarily about anything. Five clearly wasn't listening, chin in his hand and staring at nothing, thinking about something, someone, somewhere else.  
  
Rick had noticed Five was being cagey long before they got together for this particular hang out. In the grand scheme of things, Rick and Five hadn't known each other all that long-- six months in real time (though keeping track of real time is complicated for men whose lives involve as much time travel as theirs) but the _amount_ of time doesn't matter. Rick knows a mirror when he's looking in one, and Five is more than just a kindred spirit. He sees his own restlessness in Five, his own exhausted, overstimulated brain working in hyperdrive, his own desperate need to shut off while refusing to allow himself that peace. That's why Rick had developed a drinking habit-- though he doubts Five ever would. He drinks socially with Rick for fun, but he prefers his faculties too sharp to develop his own killswitch for when his brain started to get away from him. 

Rick had seen the signs weeks ago. The agitation, the frustration, the exhaustion, the distracted air to his words and expressions. He tried to pep his friend back up by taking him on wild adventures the likes of which he would usually save for Morty, and they seemed to work to distract the man _while_ they were happening, but after the fact he'd be right back to brooding and sulking in thought. If adventures didn't work, and drinking didn't work (and they'd certainly done a lot of that) then there's only one other thing Rick can think to try. 

He's not about to let Five work himself to death, that's for certain. Rick doesn't make friends easy, and never has. He usually makes friends by circumstance alone-- family, wartime, conquest. This is the first time in recent memory Rick has made a solid friendship with someone who he just happened to meet on a whim. And he's not about to fucking lose that because Five is lost in his thoughts. 

"Hey," Rick stands up from the card table that Five's attention had drifted away from minutes ago. "I wanna take you somewhere."  
  
"Where?" Five's voice is sharp as he looks up sharply, not even paying attention to the fact that it had clearly been his hand for the past five minutes. He'd gotten lost somewhere against his ace of spades and jack of hearts, respectively, and when he tosses the cards onto the table and stands, he only vaguely realizes he could have gotten some kind of flush. He couldn't get more specific than that. Fun like cards had not been something he'd memorized intimately before the Commission claimed him.  
  
"Don't worry about it," Rick says, leading Five out of the motel they'd claimed for the night. He strips the quilt off one of the two beds as he passes it and bundles into the space ship with it (parked conspicuously in the lot, though by now Five has learned that's just a quirk of his) and he lifts up off the blacktop. A second later he fires a portal and flies the ship through it, and the light of the yellow fluorescents cuts instantly into pitch black as Rick slowly lowers the ship back down. 

It takes Five's eyes a second to adjust as Rick climbs back out of the ship and steps onto the side of a grassy hill. As Five's eyes get used to the darkness, the scene around them becomes apparent. 

They're on the side of a grassy hill, lit by starlight, overlooking a massive rolling valley cut by rivers and paddocks nesting some kind of quadrupedal creatures all huddled together to sleep in groups, too far away and too dark to identify. And Rick is shaking out the blanket, and laying it out over the grass.  
  
Confusion is the first thing to flit over Five's face. His eyebrows drawing over his eyes, mouth a frown, Five climbs out of the space ship and goes still as he takes in the quiet serenity of their surroundings. It's peaceful, in the way that worlds from their section of the multiverse aren't. They've come by a few of these in their time, though they all too quickly turn violent in their company. It was nice, if not immediately suspicious. Rick can feel Five's eyes on him as he spreads the blanket out, can probably even guess what equation Five was doing in the back of his brain, trying to calculate the odds of this being some sort ruse. It wasn't very likely-- something like this was certainly not Rick's idea of a killing spot, but still, he can't rule it out.

For the first time in Five didn't know how long, he inhales the sweet smell of grass, the warm hint to the air as people cooking from down the gulch draw attention. It would be beautiful. If Five had ever decided to appreciate the value in such nostalgic bullshit. 

"Is that all?" He asks, his voice sharper than it really needs to be. Judging by the downward twitch of his brows, Five knew it, too.  
  
Rick sits on the blanket with his back to Five, and doesn't move, and doesn't say anything. He waits, and lets the man go through all the hoops he knows he's dancing around with inside his brain before he'll finally come to the conclusion to sit down beside him. Five doesn't know how to fly his ship (though he could probably learn without instruction with enough time to explore and practice) or how to get back on his own. He's stuck here, subject to Rick's whims, and he knows it. He has to rely on Rick to get back-- he has no idea where they are.  
  
Reluctantly enough, Five actually decides to sit down, an exhausted, annoyed sigh punctuating the effort it took. Hands to his knees, he settles down with a quiet grunt, and almost immediately his foot goes back to bouncing, squinting out over the small, sleepy town with an annoyed expression on his face, as if the town was at fault for their presence, and not his own damn self.  
  
Rick lets the silence linger for a long time. Longer than Five would like, he knows that. And that's the point. He lets Five stew in it, wind it up inside himself. Fall all over himself with thoughts upon thoughts about why they're here, what the point is, what the _purpose_ is. He lets Five exhaust himself with the mental gymnastics-- because oh yes, he knows he's doing them. He knows Five's mind as intricately as he knows his own. He could mistake Five as a clone of himself if he wasn't so intimately familiar with his own duplicates. But it's different, because he's never even related to another version of himself in the same way he relates to Five. 

He breaks the silence several agonizing minutes later with a simple, curt, "You're antsy."  
  
"Gee, wonder _why_ ," Five retorts shortly, so quick it was as if he'd prepared for Rick's confrontation. A lot of silence meant a lot of time to work out what was going on, and for Five, who was far too used to predicting outcomes and anticipating every one, it was hardly a shot in the dark to assume he'd had words planned. He doesn't look over at Rick when he says it, doesn't bother standing up or moving away, even if his tone would suggest he wanted nothing more than to do just that. The blanket was comfortable, that would be his excuse. As if it even mattered.  
  
Rick karate chops Five in the chest hard enough to wind him, and then throws his arm up to block the retaliatory swing he already knows will come from Five's elbow. He catches it and uses the leverage of his trapped arm to knock him flat on his back. 

Immediately, Five is greeted with the view of the sky overhead, which he hadn't bothered to pay attention to until now. It's no wonder the valley is so well lit by starlight, because the sky overhead is a myriad of color, cloudy nebulas all jellylike and rainbow clustered around stars so thick it's like paint brushes were dragged across the sky. There's not one but _three_ moons illuminating the expanse, all in a perfect line from horizon to horizon, in amidst all the orange, blue, red and green. 

"Take a fucking breath, Five," Rick says it like an order. "You're gonna give me heartburn."  
  
Since their first meeting, space had always been the one way Five would admit Rick had him beat. The ability to explore it, the ability to live in it, to _exist_ within it. Five's particular traveling abilities had never been stronger thanks to the Commission's training and experimentation, and he was fairly confident he could jump to whole planets if he knew them confidently enough. But he wouldn't get to see the stars on the way there. Maybe he was sentimental, but staring at them now, Five got just a little lost. At least, until Rick had to go and ruin it by speaking.

And then he remembers he's being pinned down by his friend, who had chose to bark an order at him, like he has the right. Leaning forward, Five tilts his head, "Then maybe you shouldn't let me get to you so much. I'd hate for your heart to go out." It's said with acidity, but no real heat, words spoken more on instinct than intention.  
  
Still holding Five's arm across his own chest, with his arm looped across Five's in kind, he pushes him back down, easily having him beat just from the leverage of the position alone. "You dumb asshole. You think I'd drag your ass out to little house on the prairie if you didn't _get to me?_ Why do you think we're here, because I really like the fucking _stars?_ You think I don't see the stars every day of my goddamn life?"  
  
Five can feel the pressure on his chest like a warm, particularly intoxicating blanket, and he ignores the surge of warmth that goes through him at that feeling alone. He could understand the aggression behind pinning him down: any emotion he wrung out of that couldn't be looked at too closely, especially whatever it was that made him exhale slowly, heavily through his mouth-- a long, unintentional sigh. His shoulders even sink a little from the effort, not that he realizes. 

"So then why are we here, if you didn't feel like bragging," he growls, eyes narrowing.  
  
"We're _here_ ," Rick says, his tone clipped and harsh. "Because you're _antsy_. Open your ears, Five."  
  
"And how is pinning me to the ground resolving that little issue?" Five leers, tone just as short.  
  
"I _told_ you--" Rick starts sharp, but then he pauses. He knows this isn't going to work like this. Shouting Five down isn't going to work. That might work for Morty, but he knows it wouldn't work for _him_ if the tables were turned, and so he knows it wouldn't work for Five. So instead, he breathes out and finishes softer. "To take. A _breath_. Your mind's going all crazy all over the place. It's bad for you. So I brought you to a place with no problems, no equations, no missions and no threats. Just you, me and the stars. So take a fucking breath and be a little grateful."  
  
Five bites his tongue to stifle the instinctual snarl that he'd like to demonstrate. The quieter tone makes him listen, and with listening comes comprehension. So he clenches his jaw and nods once, shortly, "Fine," he mutters, eyes narrowing on Rick's face. And, to prove the point, he looks Rick in the eye as he takes another deliberately deep breath in, raising Rick's arm perched on his chest, and then exhales, lowering him again. He takes another one, too, for the hell of it. "Done." His mind still buzzed, his fingers twitching on the arm held tight by Rick.  
  
"Cute," Rick says flatly, and lets go of Five's arm. He folds his hands on his own belly and just looks up at the stars for a moment before asking, "What's got your brain in such a rush, anyway? Some project I can help with, take off some of the strain? Watching you wind yourself up so tight you can't even smile anymore is fucking depressing."  
  
"Nothing," Five mutters, pushing himself to sit upright when he's given the opportunity. He presses his hand to his face for a second, smooths his thumb over his mustache, staring over at the houses beneath them. "...Something the Handler said. About my family." He finally relents. His foot twitches twice, the hiccuping start to another full blown Moment before he stills it, actively stopping himself from the noticeable trigger.  
  
"What'd she say?" Rick asks, leaning up on his elbow with his other arm still draped over his belly. If there's one subject he and Five are kindred in the most, it's family. Rick's relationship with his family is... considerably more complicated than Five's, but no less fucked up. And no less intense.  
  
Five sucks on a tooth. The countryside beneath them didn't deserve the acidic glare he was throwing them, but he gave it to them nonetheless; And they persisted, wholly unbothered by the irrelevant assassin not a mile away. "She said she was surprised I lasted this long," He grits his teeth, sneering as he says it. "Apparently others in my position have been more _motivated_ than I am to go home. Said I must like it there." He could spit. His foot begins to bounce. "Like I haven't done everything in my fucking power to home. Like I wouldn't be there right fucking _now_ if I had a choice in the matter. Does that mean other Fives are smarter than me? That's not possible," He scoffs loudly and raises his chin to the stars, glaring at them, instead.  
  
" _Hey_." Rick reaches up and presses his hand to Five's chest again. He pushes him down, with much less pressure or aggression than before, just a gentle pressure to get him to lay down. Once his back is flush to the blankets, Rick leans up on that elbow so he can look down at the younger man, his hand still pressed to his chest and his brow furrowed hard down over his eyes. "She says that shit to get to you on purpose. She knows you're smarter than her, so she has to keep you stupid if she's going to keep you under her. All she's got going for her is her bullshit position with that bullshit company, and the fact that it's higher than yours. If she can keep you angry, that makes you dumb, and she can keep getting one over on you. You gotta stop letting her get in your head. She doesn't fucking _deserve_ to be there."  
  
Under Rick's palm, he can feel the heavy hammer of Five's heart-- perhaps heavier in tempo than his foot, which had gone slack when he'd been forced to lay back again. His glaring face catches on Rick's, and Five quickly points it away. This anger wasn't for Rick. It wasn't aimed at him, he didn't deserve it. Clenching his jaw, Five shakes his head and looks away, turning his head to the side. Even from here he can see the array of colors painting the sky, the yellow-white glow of the moons illuminating each individual blade of grass as if they had their own spotlight. "It would make sense if she knew. She has her claws in everything." His chest raises and lowers, a bit erratically, but at least he's breathing. "It doesn't make sense. There's no physical way I could have left earlier, not unless I somehow knew my dimension number and you helped. Unless I did figure out the math sooner, and--" 

He actually feels like he's trying to reach for that fucking book of his, patting at the pocket of his blazer.  
  
"Stop," Rick catches Five's hand instead, holding and squeezing it to keep him from reaching for his book. " _Enough_. If you haven't cracked the code in 45 years, you're not gonna fucking crack it tonight. But you know what _could_ happen tonight if you don't fucking calm down? An aneurysm. No more math, no more calculations, no more what-ifs, just look at the fucking stars and appreciate them, for once."  
  
There's a flash in Five's eye that just screams of a fight. Most of Five screams for a fight at any given time. But the weight of Rick's arm, the squeeze of his hand, and that incorrigible warmth spreading through his chest distracts him just long enough to break the cycle of violence, for the time being. A proper, real exhale is finally given, as Five looks from Rick to their joined hands. And where he may have once yanked away, he instead falls back, shoulders and head actually hitting the blanket as his eyes focus on the stars. "Fine," he mutters, voice tight. The warmth battling the sick-feeling anxiety for control over his chest.  
  
Rick heaves a relieved sigh and drops back down to the blanket beside his friend. He lets the silence linger for a few seconds before breaking it, this time with a softer tone. "You know we've been going on all these wild fucking yeehaws, but I don't know the most basic shit about you. When's your birthday? What's your favorite color? What did you wanna be when you grew up?"  
  
Five glances sideways at Rick, weary. He swallows around his tongue, forcing himself to ignore the instinct to deflect, to jibe, to distract with words and scathing retorts. Not like Rick would be deterred by that, anyway. "October 1st. Blue." The last question brings him pause, and he squints at the sky, face twisting in a frown that's practically etched into his face. "Nothing. We were supposed to stop the apocalypse. After that, I figured it'd be more of the same. Don't really need a day job when you're a superhero."  
  
"Wait, wait, wait," Rick rolls up onto his side to face the other man. "You were a super hero when you were a _kid?_ Bullshit," he's grinning, though. It doesn't actually sound like he can't believe it, as much as he desperately wants more information.  
  
Five smiles that jaded little half-smile that only Rick is a true expert at yanking out of him. Dolores was good at it, too. Five ignores that, still staring at the sky. "Me and my siblings were all born on October 1st, 1989, each of us with superpowers. Our adoptive father was raising us to 'save the world'," Rick could hear the air quotes, even if Five doesn't give them. "Some good that did."  
  
"Still hope yet, right?" Rick mutters. As he listens to Five talk about his childhood, about his most mundane of experiences, he can practically see the years melting off his face. Getting his brain off of his problems just for a few minutes seems to be doing wonders for the lines that trace every one of his scowls. "So you had how many siblings? You said seven, right?"  
  
"Seven including me. Six siblings," Five agrees. His hand twitches fingers wanting to clench into a fist. He breaths again, stares at the stars, and stifles the urge. "Two girls. The rest boys. Vanya, the youngest, didn't actually have powers," Five tilts his head back, breathing another heavy sigh through his teeth, so hard it practically whistles. How long had it been since he'd said her name? The word hits him like a punch to the gut. Five swallows. "She played violin, though. Really well, too."  
  
"Huh," Rick pillows his head on his arm, crooked at the elbow against the blanket. "So, did it suck, or was it great? What's the verdict on having siblings? I never had any myself, but I also didn't feel like I was missing out on much. I never got along with kids my age when I was young."  
  
"Couldn't really say. We weren't raised like siblings," Five admits. He could feel his heart hammering, but it's for an entirely different reason, now. He'd done it, saying her name. He never should have. He tries to push through it, for at least Rick's sake. He was clearly trying. "Our father allowed us 30 minutes of play time a week, on Saturday. We weren't allowed to talk during meals, and every other hour of the day was dedicated to something. Training, education, chores, that kind of thing. " 

Five hesitates, before adding, just a little bit pained, "But when we _were_ siblings.... pretty good. I'd recommend it."  
  
Rick huffs a humorless laugh. "Sounds like my mom," he says, his voice flat. "She never wanted kids. She married my dad for money because he invented the atom bomb, had me by accident, and spent the rest of her life making that _my_ problem. I think if I had siblings, they would've ended up as fucked up as I am."  
  
Five laughs a laugh that matches Rick's almost to the octave, a sharp bark, and then nothing, "I don't know how they turned out," He admits, and feels that ugly hammering in his chest again, and his thigh twitches. "I'd like to think they're a little better off than I was in the wasteland, but for all I know they grew up to be as fucked up as everyone else with daddy issues. Our mom was nice, for a robot. And we had Pogo."  
  
"Your mom was a _robot?"_ Rick laughs, more genuinely this time. "Jesus christ. I always _said_ my mom was a robot, but yours actually was? What a fucking riot. Fucking hell, some people just shouldn't have kids." He looks up at the sky with a sad, angry expression. "You were just a kid when you wound up in the apocalypse, right? I guess it's good you were in some fucking superhero shit before then or you probably would've just fucking died. I've spent a few scattered years in various apocalypses... sucks every time. Were you totally alone or were there other people?"  
  
"I was 13. I absolutely would have died," Five agrees without question, "If the initial explosion hadn't killed everyone, then the shit that came a couple decades in would have," His heart goes heavy when he thinks about it. 

_Was_ he truly alone? How much was this amicability with Rick going to last. Still.

"I wasn't entirely alone. There was someone. Her name was Dolores. She kept me sane." His heart beats in his chest as sorrow tears at his chest as another name that had no right to be spoken leaves his lips for the first time in longer than he'd like to admit. The Handler hadn't let him bring her, calling her a toy. He'd had to leave her. He still feels sick for it, sometimes.  
  
"Dolores, huh?" Rick repeats. He can hear the quaver in Five's voice when he talks about her, and he feels a wrenching in his own chest that reminds him of Dianne. He has to swallow down his own knot to keep his voice steady. "So how'd she survive? Was she already in a bunker somewhere? Doomsday prepper who saw shit coming from a mile away?"  
  
There it was. Five stares at the stars for a long time, his chest raising and falling slow, measured, far too slow to be natural. "She was a mannequin," He says finally, voice soft. He doesn't look at Rick when he says it.  
  
Rick is stunned, again, into silence by the details of Five's life. If it were anyone else but Five, he would have laughed in his face. A fucking _mannequin_ , he would have said, how _rich_. But there's nothing funny about this. Nothing that brings him even an inkling of joy. He feels a heavy weight in his chest that he fucking hates, but if he's going to feel it for anyone, it should be this asshole. 

"Huh," is all he says, softly.  
  
Five can still hear The Handler jeering as he went to pick her up to bring her with him. 

_How sweet, dear, that you'd like to bring your little toy. But you're getting a big boy job, now. Time to grow up._

"She was the only thing semi-human that survived whatever it was. Everyone else was--" Five's eyebrows furrow and he stops himself from talking altogether, staring at the stars. He seems to struggle to control himself, to even out his breathing and regain some semblance of composure. It's a painful battle. "Well," He finally manages, when the word refuses to present itself, "It was the apocalypse."  
  
"Yeah. I get it," Rick says, still laying on his side facing the other man. "So is that why you get all weird every time I put my hand on your shoulder or some shit? Touch starvation? That's real shit, you know. Doesn't get talked about a lot." As if to prove a point, he reaches out to rest his hand on Five's chest again.  
  
And, point proven, Five's entire body practically inhales into that touch. He swells without realizing it, chest raising to press Rick's hand flush against him, like a stray cat. And yet still, Five mutters, "I don't get _weird_."  
  
It's not like Rick's never noticed that Five's good looking. In that distinguished old gentleman kind of way. Admittedly, Rick's not usually attracted to people his own age-- not for reasons of appearance, as much as open mindedness and a willingness to experiment and adventure. He's never had that problem with Five before. He'd never even let himself consider crossing that line with Five before, because Rick doesn't like mixing up his friends with his lovers-- but it's not like it'd be unprecedented, either. Morty, Stan and Birdperson have proved that point three times over. He told himself he was done, but the way Five arches up to his touch makes his chest twist again. 

"Yeah, course not," he says, not so subtly grabbing for and pulling on five's tie, tugging until the fabric slips free of the knot, and he slips it out from underneath Five's collar, tossing it into the grass and plucking at the buttons of his shirt so they come loose around his throat, all while still casually laying on his side beside the other man.  
  
That certainly wakes him up. Five's breathing all but stops as Rick removes his tie and tosses it aside, and when the cool air of the night hits on skin that had barely seen the air of his _room_ , he can't help but half-gasp, half-choke on his own tongue, leaning forward and turning, to look at Rick, "What are you _doing?"_ He asks. There's not anger or revulsion in his tone, but rather genuine surprise, as if he couldn't imagine what was possibly going on in Rick's head in that moment. His breathing is picking up again, but this time for something new, and he's not sure if he prefers it to the warmth of before, or not.  
  
Rick's dark eyes flick up to meet Five's for just a second when he asks. He supposes he should have found out if Five was even bisexual before doing this, but the fact that the other man is looking at him like he wants to crawl inside Rick's lab coat tells him everything he needs to know about his sexuality. So he looks back down at his hand instead as it works, plucking buttons open in a slow line. 

"I'm opening your shirt," he says, purposefully obtuse.  
  
"I know _what_ you're doing," Five snaps, and his hand reaches out to grab Rick's, stopping the steady removal of his shirt before things get too out of hand and Five actually lets him. The last person to see his chest was The Handler, and she had always been a slut for competency of any kind. She'd made it rather obvious he wasn't much to look at, though-- And while he was hardly insecure about what the worst woman in the multiverse had to say about him, it felt oddly vulnerable to let Rick undress him like this, like a girl on her first date. " _Why_ are you doing it?" He amends, still looking at Rick in the eye.  
  
"Cause I want to," Rick says, equally obtuse a second time, but at least he meets Five's eyes when he says it. "Do I need more of a reason than that?"  
  
" _Yes_ , if you're going to be an _idiot_ about it," Five half-snarls, torn between pressing into his hand and throwing him off, unsure what his intention was and far too guarded to set himself up for failure if this were some kind of joke.  
  
"Okay, fine," Rick leans up on his elbow again, still holding resolutely to one of Five's buttons. "Try this one on for size-- I respect you too much to let the Handler be the last person to touch you. Or how's this-- I know what a brain looks like when it's going too fucking fast, and I know how to shut it off by force for a little while. You could use a system reboot, Five. Let me help."  
  
"You could knock me unconscious," Five suggests only half-seriously, frowning as he glances down at his own chest, ignoring the crisscrossing myriad of scars already visible there, to linger on his hand still settled at his ribcage. He could feel himself breathing too hard, the faint brush of fingers on skin making the hair on his arms stand on end. "Are you serious?"  
  
"Yeah," Rick says, tugging on that button again, trying to get his hand free from Five's grasp. "I _could_ knock you unconscious, but then I'd have to drag your ass back to the ship and bring you home myself when you got two perfectly working legs. This is more fun."  
  
Five stares at Rick for a long moment, and it really seems like Five is trying to perfectly anticipate how the next series of events will go. It's what he did, predict every possible outcome and choose what was most likely. He very much looks like he's trying to figure Rick out, too. 

Finally, he drops his hand, leaning back on the grass. "Fine," He says, staring at the stares, his voice tight.  
  
If it were anyone else but Five, the tense, cold-fish attitude would put Rick off. But he can see it for what it is-- a tense resignation of Five's tightly-held control. This is just the first step of many to getting his brain to shut down for a little while. A mind like Five's doesn't simply have an on-off switch, it's a complicated and lengthy process to turn off, more like disarming a bomb. He starts with unbuttoning the rest of Five's shirt and opening the fabric so he can both get a look at the man, and spread his hand across his stomach. 

"It's been a while for you," Rick says, not as a question, but a statement. He can see it in the way Five's skin bristles with goose bumps with every pass of Rick's hand as he explores his chest and belly. "Been with a man before?"  
  
"In a house where the gender ratio is 2:5?" Five asks, glancing pointedly down at Rick, at his his hand palming his belly and his eyes sharp on every inch of him. Rick's head snaps towards Five when he all but admits to having slept with his siblings, something he wouldn't have expected at all, but... is actually remarkably comforting to hear. Exposure sinks icily into Five's chest and stomach, electrifying and scaring him in a way he's actually surprised by. When had he felt nervous to fuck someone? When was the last time stakes felt high at all?

The Handler had been a fairly easy fuck, all things considered. He, half feral from the wasteland, had bred her like the dog she'd wanted to be, and she'd thanked him for it. This was different, though. An entirely different monster. If this was a quick fuck, Five could make sense of it. Quick fucks were carnal, animalistic, a product more of instinct than thought. Instinct Five knew very well. He was an expert of his own instinct. This went against all of that. 

His breath hitches as a nail-- whether accidentally or intentionally-- catches on his skin. Not even hard enough to leave a mark, but the texture change from soft to hard was so sudden that it tears his breath away. "I assume you know what you're doing?"  
  
Rick leans out over Five, and swings a leg over his lap, abruptly straddling the other man. He shrugs off his lab coat and tosses it to the side where Five's tie landed somewhere in the night-black grass, and chases it with his own shirt. It's a cool night but not unbearably cold, and if Five's going to have his shirt open, the least he can do is return the favor. He's scrawny, smaller than Five by more than half despite being considerably taller than him, and weighs practically nothing as he settles on top of the other man. 

"You know I was kidding when I said that thing about mustaches and abs," Rick says, dragging his hands over Five's chest and tracing the scars there, running his fingers through the groomed white hair on his belly. "You didn't have to go out and get 'em just for me."  
  
Five resists the urge to touch Rick, though his hands fist in the blanket with the lack of effort. His muscles twitch where Rick pays them attention, and he has to swallow to stop a quiver from breaking his voice and embarrassing him as he licks his lip, watching Rick with sharp attention. 

"Maybe I was hoping you'd take matters into your own hands," Five challenges crisply, "Or maybe I wanted to give you something to look at." Still, Five doesn't react in kind. He fights the hunger to cave like a child holding onto a rope. Why? He couldn't explain. But there was some too intimate about touching Rick, too forward, too accepting. Was it acceptance of himself he was lacking? Of _Rick?_ Looking up at him now, something strikes in his gut, something familiar to the gaunt, slender curve of his waist, his hips. Five's fingers twitched again.  
  
Taking note of Five's uncertain hands, Rick rolls his eyes. "Jesus christ, you are repressed," he says, grabbing Five by the wrists and lifting his hands up to hook onto his hips. Five's hands are calloused and hard, but they're warm on Rick's surprisingly soft skin. He slides his own hands up Five's chest to hook his jacket and shirt off his shoulders as much as they'll go so he can run his palms along his neck and collarbone without fabric getting in the way. He isn't even doing anything yet, he's not even grinding in Five's lap, all he's doing is touching him. Infusing every cell in his skin with energy that it hasn't felt in decades. Even the Handler had been a rough fuck from behind through layers of clothing, but the last time Five had actual human hands on his skin-- it's almost too far back to remember. 

Rick's thumb unsubtly grazes a nipple as he drags those hands back down Five's chest and belly, playing with the grooves of his muscles, the shiny smooth surface of old scars, and the ragged texture of newer ones. He's downright exploratory.  
  
" _Ah_ \--" Five is embarrassed by how pathetic he sounds, by how easily the noise leaves his throat. The simple touch of his nipple set him on fire, the sensation making it perk and go hard in practically milliseconds. He clicks his mouth shut quickly after, so hard Rick could hear the snapof teeth, and his fingers squeeze Rick's hips before they realize that they're there. 

On instinct, Five's thumbs dig into Rick's hips, smoothing and pressing into him almost curiously. He can feel the bone, the skin, the slim amount of muscle. He was surprisingly sturdy, considering how frail and weak he appeared to be-- you'd never guess it in a combat situation alongside him, and Five knew that from experience-- and from the experience of hunting him, personally. He ignores the way his belly clenches, the 3 raised scars across his gut looking pointedly like claw marks, overly sensitive to those fingers when they trace across the lines of his healed injuries. And then his gut seizes, an aftershock of realization clenching in his gut before his hands tighten on Rick's hips, then release, like he was burnt.

"Hang on," he mutters tightly, staring up past Rick, past the stars, as he tries to physically override the screaming in his brain telling him to knock this off, to stop wasting his time, to go back to the Commission and back to work getting his family back--  
  
"Hang on what?" Rick says as his wandering hands make it to Five's belt, and he pulls the leather straps apart, tugging it free of the buckle so he can lean back and pull down five's fly. He's fully aware of Five's dilemma, he can _see_ the gears still whirring behind his eyes. He knows the only chance to get past it is as the crow flies-- barreling straight ahead and brute forcing his way past the barricades Five's anxious hyperfocus will inevitably, weakly throw up in a vain attempt at self preservation of the mission, the project, the statistics-- blah, blah, blah.  
  
"Hang _on_ \--" Five snaps, and his hands go immediately to Rick's. His breathing is harder now, chest raising and falling quickly as he seems to only half-see what's going on. He can feel Rick's hand on him, can feel the heat of his body soaking into his bones. Pinned down to the ground as he was, Five can even feel how heavy Rick _isn't,_ how easily he could genuinely throw the man away, if he had half a mind to. He didn't. He had absolutely no mind to.

But still, the sick feeling of anxiety overwhelms the warmth, this time kicking up ancient concerns about girth, and stamina, and strength, and ability. Things he has never worried about, nonetheless since he became old enough to realize none of that matters. His hand grips Rick's wrist, tightly, "Just hold on." He tries to demand harder, eyes still distantly glazing past Rick, too in his head to form a thought.  
  
"No," Rick says, pulling his hands out of Five's grip. It's a testament to how little Five means his protests that he can pull his wrists so easily out of the stronger man's hands. He hunches over Five and rakes a line of wet, toothy kisses up the side of his throat. "You want me to _hang on_ because you're trying to come up with some fucking excuse to why you're not allowed to have a nice night, as if we don't fuck around and have a nice night every time we get together."

He arches up onto his knees and drags his hands down Five's belly to his pants again, tugging them open. "You're thinking, that's _different_. That's not so far off what you do for business already when we tear ass through town raising hell. You do that all the time anyway, so it feels seamless, but _this_ ," he closes his hand around Five's clothed package and squeezes. "This is _different_. It's not fucking different, Five. We waste time every time we hang out."

Five's mouth actually drops open when Rick's mouth trails across him, his skin crawling, back twitching in the faintest bow of an instinctual arch as he urges himself into the kiss without intention. He needs Rick to stop. He wants Rick to stop. Surely that should be enough of a request that deserved to be followed? But Rick continued on, and Five had no choice but to deal with it, even as he argues and Five's mouth opens to argue back. As if he didn't actually have a choice-- as if he couldn't physically overpower the other man in a second, if he wanted to. He doesn't.

"Fuck! _Rick!"_ The shout leaves him like a bark as soon as Rick's hand finds purchase on the growing bulge in his slacks, the pinprick-tickles of pleasure beginning to grow to spikes as he feels heat pool in his extremities for what feels like the first time in his entire life. It was a new experience, different from losing his virginity; More akin to warming up after an extended heat in the cold. 

Chest heaving, eyes narrowing, Five regards Rick down the line of his nose, staring at him like he would have just the right quip to use appear to him. "That's what this is?" He asks, finally managing to meet Rick's eyes for the first time throughout all of this-- "A waste of time?"  
  
"For you it is," Rick says, his skin prickling with pleasure from the mere sound of Five's shout. The only time he ever hears Five raise his voice is in the middle of a combat situation, or when he needs to be heard over something. Otherwise he's an incredibly soft spoken, gentlemanly fellow. But not right now, not like this. Like this he's just as much of a fucking animal as everyone else.

He leans up again and hooks a hand around the back of Five's neck, tugging him up far enough that he can use his leverage on top of the man to flip him over. The fabric of his blazer and shirt get tangled around him, and then he feels the press of the blanket against his bare chest as Rick settles his weight across the backs of his thighs, and that hand on his neck pins him down. Rick is not physically stronger than Five, not by a long shot, but he's relying on the fact that deep down, he knows Five wants nothing more than for someone else to call the shots, for once. It's just a matter of getting him to admit that to himself. 

"You got one chance," Rick says, his thumb rubbing a circle into the side of Five's neck. " _One_ chance to tell me for real you want me to stop. I'll get off you and take you home and we'll pretend this never happened. If you wanna fight me make-believe style to preserve your pride while I take away your options and make you _feel_ it by force-- if you want the excuse that it wasn't _your idea_ , I can do that. Or if you just don't wanna stop but you're too chickenshit to say yes with your words, then don't tell me to stop and I can put two and two together."  
  
On his stomach, Five can feel the hammering of his heart with much more clarity. He can feel the wheeze in his lungs, the now-surprising weight of Rick as he bears down on his thighs, even the individual blades of grass through the blanket, his face ground into the dirt with almost attentive care. His breaths make the blanket hot beneath him, the air hot around him, and Five's chest begins to raise and fall as the conflicting sides of him spar, wrestling and twisting in his stomach, his chest. He can feel it like bile in his throat, and even that is rendered ineffective by the thumb dragging circles into his skin.

"Rick--" Five mutters, voice tight. He sounded angry. He always sounds angry. But there's a softness to his name, now. An almost-desperation as he fights with the suggestions laid before him. Stop? _Did_ he want to stop? It felt weird to consider it, his entire body singing louder now than ever, and all for the man above him to touch him anywhere, anytime, in whatever manner he liked.

He can't describe the feeling of being touched again. It's impossible to put into words. Five turns his head to the side and screws his eyes shut, focusing on his breathing (Shaky, trembling, hot and fast and wet and definitely not utilizing his entire lung), his surroundings (Cold, damp grass, cold night sky, warm, warm, _warm_ blanket), and Rick. 

Turning his face into the blanket, Five can feel his shoulders collapse in something like relief as he begins to nod, breathlessly, while dragging heavy gasps of air through his mouth. "Just-- _please_ \--" He can't ask to be turned off. No part of him would ever _ask_ for that. But he also knows now that he wants that more than anything in the world.  
  
Rick doesn't gloat for his victory over the smaller man. It doesn't feel like something to gloat about. He knows intimately how hard it is to shut off, how hard it is to admit to even _want_ to shut off. How he wishes someone would be the person to turn off _his_ brain when he needs it-- that's what the liquor is for. 

"Yeah. I gotcha," Rick says roughly, and then quickly disentangles Five's shirt and jacket from his arms, tossing them to the growing pile of clothing off to the side. With his back bared, Rick takes a second to admire the thick ropes of muscle that frame Five's whole body, sinewy hard lines etched deep from years of excruciating labor. Silky scars gleam in the starlight, his skin dyed rainbow hues from the nebulas twisting overhead. 

He kneels up and tugs down Five's pants and underwear (an extremely modest pair of grey briefs that Rick feels a throb in his stomach upon seeing, but knows better to comment on) but he leaves them on around his thighs just below his ass so he doesn't feel absolutely exposed. Rick doesn't bother with flowery compliments about how much he likes the way Five's muscles score shadows into his back, not only because he's bad at giving compliments but also because he's sure Five is just as bad about receiving them. Instead he just grabs for his lab coat and uses his portal gun to open a portal to inside the glove compartment, reaching through and feeling around until he finds the travel lube and pulls it back out.   
  
" _Ah_ \--" Five mutters brokenly at the lips on his throat. A delicate whimper of hunger and lust crackling through the infinite peace of whatever dimension Rick had taken him to. Goosebumps raise down his back, the pinprick drag of teeth on long-untouched skin making his back bow and twitch. His stomach flutters, lungs swelling and choking him as Five grinds his forehead into the grass, searching for some form of stability, only finding it within the solid contact with the ground.

Five's breathing goes faster now, his ribs just barely expanding with each swallow of air. Despite years at The Commission by this point, his body was still tanned and taut from the Apocalypse, each line on him distinct and immaculate, as if time at work didn't truly progress. Under that suit he was every bit as animal as he'd been when they'd found him, just packaged neater. 

They aren't making love here, Rick knows foreplay isn't on the menu, but he can't help but lean down to mouth sharp kisses along the side of Five's throat as he uncaps the lube, squeezes it out onto his fingers, and pushes one inside Five. Five doesn't have time to register the fumbling or cap opening, too focused on his breathing, his body, the staticky feeling of pleasure in the air around them as he finds himself feeling something for the first time in a very long time.

And then it strikes home. A low, keening moan leaves Five's throat, guttural and silenced only when his teeth and mouth find the blanket and he buries himself in it. His hips arch, bucking against the intrusion, and he actually half-raises to his knees. Like a snake he coils, rolling away and then thrusting his hips, instinctively, back into the finger. Rick had offered an inch and Five demanded a mile, hypersensitive and desperate, and now fully reawakened to just what they were doing, as if he'd needed the reminder. Five squirms, knees raising as if he was actually trying to take control in this situation, only to rut forward and grind his cock into the quilt, earning himself another hungry, low wail.  
  
Fuck, _goddamn_. Rick didn't actually expect Five to respond so enthusiastically. He expected he would have to wring any sort of response out of the repressed man, so much as a grunt or a twitch-- but this sets Rick's stomach ablaze. Pleasure ripples through his body, riding an intense, prideful wave of satisfaction. Part of him desperately wants to comment on it, to say something about Five's evident ecstasy, but Rick knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he says something he'll break the spell and Five's walls will come slamming back up, after Rick's done all this work to break them down. 

So instead he just leans out over Five and braces a hand on his shoulder, holding his chest to the ground so he can control the pace-- but he doesn't do anything to prevent the raise and roll of his hips. Five's energetic participation is more than encouraged, and Rick twists his wrist to screw his finger into Five just as roughly as he wants. He's tight, years of touch deprived from him making his body clamp up like a steel bear trap, but Rick has patience and all the time in the world. 

Satisfied with the amount of lube he'd spread within Five's channel, Rick turns his attention to the main attraction. His finger had only just barely grazed Five's prostate in passing as it arched into him, but now he twists his wrist to point his palm skyward, and he finds that spot easily with a hard press of his finger, like he's trying to call a fucking elevator. He grinds against that spot, pulsing pressure against it in quick little jabs, leaning his full weight onto the man's shoulder as he milks him relentlessly.  
  
The sudden surge of pleasure grips Five tight and effectively wrangles any noise from his throat. His mouth opens and his teeth come down again in the cloth blanket, muffling the second stilted moan that leaves his chest. He's still holding on, still hyperfocused on keeping himself calm, together. Perhaps he _should_ let go-- the pleasure ringing in his gut is a rather effective persuasion tactic. But it almost feels like too much. Each strike to his core blasts another ring of pleasure through his psyche, the firm hand on his shoulder digging so hard into his muscle it would surely leave a bruise.

The time he'd spent untouched is hitting him en masse, now. Decades of repression, of pain, of isolation, bubble and raise like tar in his stomach, molten and hot, toxic and vile; Five wants to shout, wants to pour the wasted years from his gut like rejecting a bad meal. He bites on it and takes it, the muscles in his back coiling and tightening, an incessant push against Rick's hand one of the only remnants of the fight Five has left in him.

Five's cock throbs in time with the rest of his body as Rick's fingers plunge deep into his battered self. Jerking and rutting into the blanket, Five's breath is wet as he pulls away from the blanket, barely able to hold his head up. "You think-- I'm some virgin--?" Five challenges, his voice a low snarl. Rick can hear the carnality to it, the barely-repressed fervor that came with those words, " _More_." He then commands, as if he was running the show, despite the way he twitched and jerked with every twist of Rick's wrist.  
  
Rick complies eagerly, and without argument. He knows intimately how thin the line men like them walk between tenuous acceptance and all-out rejection, and though it burns in his chest to admit it, he _cares_ enough about Five to bite back his teasing and his quips and his cleverness just to comply. There will be time for teasing when Five is more comfortable-- and Rick realizes that already he wants this not to be a one-time experience. It's rare, when he finds those. 

He pumps his second finger into Five, finding him opening remarkably well to it, his muscles softening. Rick can't help but ache as he thinks about young Five with his ass in the air getting totaled by one of his brothers-- how it must have felt for him to explore so freely. How _long_ it's been since then. He feels a sickeningly sweet cord strike in his chest as he thinks of himself giving that satisfaction to Five again. Better than the fucking _Handler_ , that's for sure. 

"Quit your bitching," he says, finally breaking the silence as he drums those two fingers into Five roughly, scissoring them open and grinding them as deep as they'll go. Five's rim is pliant and soft, though every now and then it'll clench up in shame or something like it, those attempts of his thinking consciousness to break through the pleasure. Rick won't stop until those are all gone. He opens the lube and squeezes a bit more directly into Five's open hole between his spread fingers, a shock of cold stabbing into Five's guts before Rick quickly warms it up with the rough squelching of his fingers.  
  
" _Ha_ \--!" Five groans and his hands raise, fisting in the grass above him, fingers sticking into the dirt. There's the catching sound of the delicate blades snapping, his fists full of earth and clover. His arms strain and twist, his obvious attempt at holding on as his hips raise and push back. He even manages to get his legs under him for just a minute, only to be undone by the cold slide of more lube applied to his pliant, waiting hole. 

It's the stimulation of cold against hot that makes Five jerk, lurching forward as if to get away from Rick's hand, only to push back not a minute later. This feels different. Rick had called it wasting time. This wasn't _wasting time_ \- and yet, even as he has the thought, it's gone. Five could feel his brain beginning to spin, beginning to lose himself in the touch and the hunger and the compliance. Even Rick's words don't earn much of a quip in return, only another low groan and drag of his forehead into the blanket beneath him, as though he were trying to grind sense into his own damn self, to keep himself sane.

Rick's fingers plunge to the hilt, again and again, until Five can feel his hard knuckles rocking and grinding against his furl, buried to the hilt. There's the occasional seize, the occasional lurch of his gut as Five arches up to meet Rick, his back bowing in a pretty, surprisingly capable U, despite his age. He may not have been built like wire as Rick was, but his mobility had never been better, and with the change of position Five could swear Rick sinks deeper into him, earning a fluttering, high-pitched sigh.  
  
"Fuck," Rick grunts lowly as he pulls his slick fingers out of Five's hole, and watches the slick shine on his rim in the starlight. It's downright beautiful to behold, sparkling against the lube like the stars are contained inside it. Five's hole twitches and clenches around nothing as it's abandoned, but Five doesn't have long to wait. He hears the jingling sound of Rick undoing his belt and pulling down his fly. Five's pants are yanked the rest of the way down around his knees so Rick has room to work with, and he easily straddles his thighs as he pushes Five back down to his belly. 

Squirting just a bit more lube into his hand (not that they really need it, but he likes the idea of making Five properly sloppy) and he strokes it over his cock before leaning out over the smaller man and bracing his hand against the middle of his back, right between his shoulder blades. 

"Breathe," he orders, as he lines up and then pushes inside. Immediately he's struck with how tight that velvety slide is, even with sufficient prep, and he drops his chin to his chest with a low grunt. Pleasure fills his system and his cock gives a twitch inside the other man. He exhales through his nose like a bull, his hips stuttering forward as he struggles to find his composure. He just wants to give Five a chance to _feel_ this, to bask in the pleasure of that first hot slide before he goes to town.  
  
Five half-shouts, a noise from so deep in his chest it sounds like it was from a different animal altogether, only before his throat closes and his teeth find blanket, the muffled continuation nothing compared to the open sound. 

Not that it matters to Five. He's consumed by Rick seating fully inside of him. Two fingers was fine, but a cock was _perfect_ , spreading with a burn and twinge that only proper penetration could supply, fueled by the slick glide of lube to ease him apart. He can feel it dripping between his thighs, the cold trail of oil making him jerk and clench tightly around the length buried into his gut. The few stutters make Five twitch, his entire body following suit as the twitching throb of Rick is felt through every synapse Five has to spare. 

It's agony. Beautiful, twisted agony. The burn of him split in two, the heavy, urgent weight of Rick's hand between his shoulders, keeping him pinned down and pliant, unable to move and entirely lacking the strength to do just that, "Shit-- _Shit_ \--" Five mutters, but it's a thoughtless mantra, muttered out of desperation and want, of hungry demand and agonized memories buried deep in his chest. 

" _Move_ ," Five demands, and for a second it actually sounds like his voice breaks on the word, an almost-beg turned into a command in the last second, "Move, Rick, move, _move_ \--" When the man doesn't immediately react, Five's voice grows in urgency, body straining against Rick's hand to snap back into his cock. He's clumsy, without practice, but the way Five's hips roll forward then back, fucking himself onto him, was anything but inexperienced, and the noise that Five makes in response to his own motions is reverent. " _Fuck_ ," He grinds out again, clawing into the ground a second time.  
  
Rick doesn't start slow. He knows Five would only complain if he did. Five doesn't need the slow ascent into a proper good fuck, he doesn't need Rick to mollycoddle him-- and he doesn't _want_ it. Rick can read what he wants as easily as if he were looking in a mirror, he can feel it through his skin like they have an empathic bond. Five is so close to having his brain shut off all the way, he just needs to trip and fall over that last hurdle. 

So Rick pulls his hips back and starts into a brutal clip that wrings the breath out of Five in tense little wheezes. His hand moves to his shoulder, still holding him down, while his other hand closes around Five's hip. Rick's pants are open only enough to let his cock through, so the noise is muffled as their bodies clap together, but it's no less apparent. Five can feel the impact every time Rick's thighs strike his, but the sensation is overshadowed completely by the feeling of Rick's cock rearranging his insides. 

"Fuck-- _fuck_ yeah--" he growls, his hand moving from Five's shoulder to the back of his neck and holding him there again. " _Yeah_ , that's it--"

" _Fuck!"_ Five snarls as Rick begins to plow into him in earnest, the dampened sound of Rick's hips slapping into his burning into his ears, a sound he'd remember for months, years, however long he had to last until this happened again. Rick's cock plunges into him to the hilt with each rough cant of his hips, ignoring whatever residual pain and reluctance and burn was there. He ignored the patches of roughness, the fluttering clenching of his hole around him, and barreled forward. 

Five finds himself pinned to the ground, so hard he feels his entire torso bruise, and if he had a voice he'd be thanking Rick for it. The ache in his throat, the exquisite blend of stretching pain with blooming pleasure makes his stomach bottom out and his cock jerk into the blanket, as every thrust forward drive Five to rut and grind into the ground, on pure, animalistic instinct.

"N--Rick- _Rick_ \--" He could practically feel the warmth of idiocy blurring the corners of his vision, thoughts jumbled and cloudy as he has them. He chases it, letting Rick fuck into him from behind, hips a half-formed rhythm with absolutely no care for establishing one, moving on pure instinct, driven by chasing that high.  
  
Rick can tell that Five's brain is officially shut down, all the highways of thought closed until further notice. He's more than a little familiar with what it looks and sounds like when someone has dropped properly, he recognizes the disjointed movements and wheezing wails of someone who barely has any grip on their own faculties. The blissful emptiness of a head full of cotton is exactly what Rick wanted for his friend, and now that he's gotten it, Rick is determined to deliver the killing blow. 

He leans back and pulls Five up onto his hands and knees properly so there's space between him and the blankets, and he folds over the much smaller man, draped over him like a robe as he reaches around under him and fists his cock. His hand is still wet with residual lube, and with the steady leaking of Five's cock the glide is flawless as he tugs him off in time with the rough slapping of his hips. 

His other arm comes up around and under Five's throat, putting him in a loose headlock as he grips Five's opposite shoulder. His full weight is leaned on the smaller man-- not that Rick's weight is even remotely substantial, especially for a man as strong as Five. But putting his weight on Five's back gives him something else to focus on, instinct to keep his elbows locked and his back straight so he doesn't lose the blissful clip of their bodies moving together. Just one more thing for Five to keep track of, to keep his thoughts squarely in his instinctive forebrain and away from any and all deep thought.  
  
Five could never say he's been _dropped_ before-- 13 year olds weren't known for their expertise, nor their flair with sexuality. BDSM dynamics don't really come into play as children. But he was familiar enough with the concept to know what was going on-- At least, he _would_ come to know what was going on, as his brain was currently floating in a limbo, clinging to any stray word it could clutch to-- an action that was promptly halted and demolished as soon as Rick leans back and bring Five with him, forcing him upright and stroking him.

He bellows. Immediately his arms buckle, his legs go weak. That same back that had ground so desperately against Rick all but sags to the ground, and it's Rick's demanding arm around his throat that makes him stay upright-- " _RICK_ \--" Five half-sobs the other man's name as the man continues his relentless pace. Any pain had been gone for minutes; in truth, he couldn't ever remember there being any to begin with. 

"Rick, Rick, _Rick_ \--" Five practically sings the scientist's name despite the air clutched from his throat. He supports Rick's weight, but only barely, only because it's the only thing in his mind to do: be fucked, and don't fall down. He can feel his face flush as all the sound around him goes dull and thick, Rick's choking effectively blacking out any and all thought he had been having and reducing him to a sturdy, mindless mess, his breath leaving him in shaking half-sobs that wrack his entire frame, little more than skin and a pulse, at this point.  
  
Rick tucks his forehead against the side of Five's neck with a low groan, breathing down his shoulder and back as he brutally fucks into the smaller man. He can feel his arms trembling when his elbows lock with the effort to keep him upright as Rick's weight bears down on his back, and knows with absolute certainty that there's nothing left but instinct in Five's brain. He can feel how close he is in the shaking of his arms, the throbbing of his cock as he strokes it, and the fluttering of his hole around Rick's length. 

"Yeah, Five-- yeah, fuck, lemme hear ya-- love it, love your voice, hold on babe, almost there--"

He twists his hand roughly around Five's cock as he cums, and sinks his teeth into the other man's shoulder to muffle his animal snarl. His hips snap forward through the waves of bliss, his own belly fluttering and shuddering as he unloads into Five without asking. Five can be angry at him later, but it's not like Rick's seed would make him any sloppier than the generous amount of lube they were using already has.  
  
He's reduced to half-shouting, half-broken sobs by the time Rick is through with him. The hips snapping into him, the hand around his cock, the breath in his ear and the weight of him against Five's back all blend into a symphony of pleasure that Five can only half-comprehend at any given point, and when he comes, it's entirely without warning. It hits him like a blow to his chest, and his arms collapse with the effort of it, his entire body slanting down, ass high in the air, allowing Rick to fuck into him like he was little more than a piece of meat.

" _RICK_ \--" Five wails as those fingers milk his orgasm from his cock, and if Rick is coming? He doesn't even seem to feel it. His entire body twitches and stutters with his orgasm, his ass clenching, hard, around Rick's cock, even as the man continues to drive into him in search of his own pleasure. Five doesn't care. He doesn't complain. He all but goes deaf, his back twitching, his body lunging forward with each thrust, plowed into the ground and through it as he coasts on the neverending spike of pleasure Rick drives into him again, and again.

By the time Rick comes, Five's thighs are shaking down to his knees, his entire body trembling with the force of keeping himself up, to where the only sound he makes to Rick's bite is a weak, gentle cry of, " _Rick_ \--" His voice sounds wet when he says it, soft and warm in a way that it just doesn't get to be in his daily life.  
  
He honestly can't tell if he blacked out or not, but the next time he's fully aware of his body, Five is laid out on his side on the blanket. His muscles are quivering like an exhausted horse, involuntarily seizing and trembling with exertion, and the sweat on his body is rapidly cooling and leaving him feeling chilled. But that doesn't last for very long, because the next thing he feels is a warm wet cloth being rubbed down his body. Rick's portal gun truly is a miracle of science. 

"You with me?" Rick mutters as he runs the cloth over Five's shaking belly to clean off the sweat and semen, admiring the bite-shaped bruise he'd left on his shoulder while he does.  
  
It's surprisingly gentle, considering the ache Five was currently feeling down into his core. He still struggled to piece a thought together, his words slow to come and fast to leave as he raises his head to fix Rick with a heavy, half-lidded gaze. Normally he might have shied away from such open touch, but as fucked out as he was, Five was content to take it, laying boneless in the grass while the occasional shiver or shudder ran down his back and into his core. 

"Would have been for a lot longer if I knew _that_ was on the table," Five manages once he gets control of his tongue and motor functions again, eyes finally fluttering properly open. Maybe it was sentiment, but Five reaches out to grab Rick's wrist, catching his eye for a long moment that should have probably be filled with words: But with what? They don't come. It wasn't his nature to speak from sentiment or appreciation. Maybe Rick could understand the look Five gave him and that would be enough, because a moment later the hand drops and he lays back, staring at the grass. "You do this often?" He finally manages, throat and voice sore and callous.  
  
"You're gonna have to be more specific," Rick says as he rolls Five flat on his back so he can wipe down his chest and arms. "Sex? Sure. Sex with _friends?_ Not really, no. Don't usually cross the streams."

He doesn't say why. He can't bear to be that openly vulnerable-- but he knows he doesn't need to. He knows that if anyone in the world would get it, it's Five.  
  
"Smart man," Five winces as he's moved, half feeling like a newborn with the amount of care Rick is giving him. He doesn't need to know specifics on why not. He _knew_ why not. It was the same reason he hadn't bothered with any of his fellow assassins when they'd thrown themselves at him. Better that way. Five allows himself to indulge in the stars a moment longer before he breaks the silence. "Well, it certainly beats playing cards."  
  
"Don't think you got off that easy, I was winning that game," Rick says, spreading his hand in the middle of Five's chest. A feeling comes over him that reminds him of _why_ he doesn't have sex with his friends-- pesky affection bubbling up in his chest. It feels different this time, only if because he can say with absolute certainty that Five is capable of handling himself. The worst part of having sex with friends and crossing that boundary is how much worse it makes it feel when faced with the idea of losing that person. But he can say with reasonable certainty that Five would sooner fight and kill the sun itself than die before he finishes his mission. 

It might be a stupid move; in fact he's pretty fucking _sure_ it's a stupid move, but hard sex didn't just make _Five_ stupid. Rick's feeling equally soft and dumb, and while some part of his brain knows better and tells him to abort mission while there's still some line that hasn't been crossed, the roaring in Rick's ears drowns it out and he leans down to kiss Five.  
  
Five's entire body goes tight all over again, so much so that Rick would certainly be able to feel it-- but after just a moment he loosens again with a knot in his chest that's almost painful to feel. He returns the kiss, slowly at first, only reaching to cradle Rick's face with a calloused hand after a terse moment of uncertainty. He doesn't push into it, nor does he demand anything else than what it was: But he would be lying if he were to say his body wasn't flooded with warmth, his heart clenching painfully in his chest. This intimacy hurt perhaps more than the release of his guard, but in an entirely different way. The hand on Rick's cheek goes to his neck. Not pulling him in or yanking, but warm and supportive, thumb dragging through the baby hairs at the back of his neck.  
  
It was a risk, but Rick has always been a master at taking calculated risks. He sighs through his nose when Five relents, when this doesn't spell the self-destruction of everything they'd tenuously built so far, and he opens his mouth against Five. It isn't a hungry or demanding kiss, rather tender and sensual, soft in a way neither of them would ever let themselves be in the presence of anyone else. Rick always figured if he was going to respect anyone as an equal it would be another Rick-- but it's fitting that it isn't. There's no inherent sense of superiority with Five, no instinctive determination to be the best version of himself. 

The kiss has his skin thrumming like a live current of electricity is being run through it. Maybe he's just hypersensitive after sex, and the brush of Five's mustache on his lip and the wet coaxing of his tongue have him feeling raw-- or maybe it's just been so fucking long since he kissed someone, but the way Five's mouth feels against his has a feeling in his brain like a tuning fork being struck against a hard surface, vibrating and sharp between his ears.  
  
Five is slow with his kiss but intentional. Never a man to dive in without thinking far too long or hard about it, Five treats this kiss in much the same way. Reverent and appreciative, basking in it simply being what it was. He can't ignore the way his heart twists with every slowly-deepening pull of their lips, doesn't bother trying to stifle his breaths as they mingle with Rick's own above him. When it doesn't seem like Rick will pull away, Five does go so far as to pull him a little deeper, encouraging the man to lay flat onto him again, his chest already aching with the distance between their bodies. If anyone were to ask, he'd blame it on the post-coitus afterglow, bothersome and hormonal as they always are.

But in truth, it was the comfort he craved. A taste of affection was hard to put down after so long without it, and there was never a point in his life where he felt like he would ever be as understood as the man currently above him. Five's teeth drag over his lip as their tongues flit, nervous and shy, against one another; The cautionary dance of two men who had been hurt more than helped. 

Five breaks the kiss, but makes no attempt to break their closeness, the hand on Rick's neck firm even if the body beneath him was soft, still pliant from his world-shaking orgasm, "We should do that again," He murmurs. His words are casual, but there's a question in the statement, an offer for more, should Rick want it.  
  
"You kidding?" Rick grins, cocky and smug, old self-destructive defense mechanisms rearing their head when it starts to feel a little _too_ soft, a little _too_ safe. "Good luck peeling me off now that I know how loud I can make you squeal."  
  
Five doesn't seem to mind, nor does it make the hand on Rick's neck move. He also doesn't let Rick pull too far back, happy to smirk at him from a close distance, too. "I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it. I can't wait to return the favor," He half-purrs, looking very much like a panther with a treat as his hand squeezes the back of Rick's throat, just once.  
  
Normally Rick would insist that Five wouldn't get the chance. The instinct is there on the back of his tongue, but it doesn't make it past his teeth. For once, Rick thinks that if someone would actually be able to get him to let his guard down enough to submit, it _would_ be Five. But he can't say that out loud, so he just drops his forehead to Five's chest with a nasally, stupid laugh.

Fuck this old man and _fuck_ his charm.


	4. Chapter 4

There's a baseline tremor in his hands that won't go away. Five doesn't know what that's a result of. Adrenaline? Endorphins? It certainly wasn't _fear_. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so genuinely unafraid in his entire life, especially against such odds, with such a task at hand. Five's shoes stick to the tile as he walks. He can feel the tacky pull as the blood between his treads begins to congeal. He walks faster.

The Handler was to blame. She was always to blame, but in particular she was to blame now. For _this_. An act of treason against The Commission, particularly enacted by those of the Temporal Corrections Division, was an egregious act. Livelihoods were destroyed for even one misstep in elimination, but grand acts of rebellion required grand acts of retribution-- so say She. A lottery was fair, the punishment left to fate, or the Gods, or karma, whatever one wanted to pin the blame on. 

So it only stood to reason that it was Five who would play executioner. 

"What did you _do_ to me?" Five slams open the door to The Handler's office, brass doorknob cracking the wood panel behind it with a sick splintering noise. He's still covered in blood, soaked through even his usually-pristine undershirt. He can still taste blood in his mouth from where his teeth had sunk into the throat of some poor motherfucker or another. 

He doesn't bother closing the door behind him, marching up to The Handler's desk and slamming both hands on it to prove his point, shaking the artful array of doodads and stationary organized just-so on the wooden surface, "What did you _do?"_ His voice is a snarl, lethal and deadly.  
  
"Eugh, Five! You couldn't even _shower_ first?" she recoils from the older man immediately in disgust, his hands slamming on the table scattering blood droplets across her immaculate stationary. "Look at you, you're repulsive!" 

She stands up from behind her desk and crosses to a filing cabinet, pulling the top drawer open to retrieve a bundle of wet-naps of all things, unfurling one from the top and holding it to him at arm's length, as if the mess currently congealing on her floor could be cleaned up with a single moist towelette.  
  
Five slaps it out of her hand, "What _was that_ back there?" He snarls again, fingers clenching on her desktop so hard he could swear her heard the bones in his hand groan. "That wasn't _me_. You _did_ something. It was like a--" His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to find the words. He went from rational to irrational in no time at all. It shouldn't have been possible. It _shouldn't_ have been. His control on his own facilities is usually tight as a vice. Tighter, where the Commission was concerned.  
  
The Handler's nose wrinkles when Five gets blood on her hand, and she pulls a second wet-nap out of the packet to wipe her hand clean. "I _assume_ you're referring to that exquisite performance you put on for the whole commission? You really did do a number on that rogue agent's family, Five. One for the history books-- both our history books _and_ theirs. The brutal unsolved slaughter of the Westwise family will be a real head-scratcher in their dimension for decades, possibly even centuries. With the doors all locked from the inside, they'll cry!"  
  
A cold wash of dread coats his throat and lungs, fills his chest with a bitter sheet of ice he can't stifle as her words echo hollowly to his core. He knows it will. Five stifles his revulsion, beats his fury into a bundle he can manage-- or at least into a place he can hide with a hard, stoic glare. He knows it doesn't have its usual acid. 

Jaw clenching, Five does not relent his glare to The Handler, the shaking in his hands working up to his shoulders, his torso, like a growing parasite. Beneath his hands, he cracks the glossy pen holder trapped between his fingers, in a rare, barely-contained display of temper, of all things. "I didn't have control," He hisses, venomously. "You _took_ that from me. _How_."  
  
"Now, Five, honestly," She croons, pulling out another napkin and reaching out to dab blood from his cheek. "Did you really think we'd turn a revenge-hungry little maniac like you into the genetically perfect killer without a failsafe? You've been yo-yoing between good and bad behavior so _restlessly_. See all you've been shown is carrot so far-- the light at the end of the tunnel, retiring with your family for however long you decide to have with them before the apocalypse comes to ruin your day. When your name was pulled in the lottery, the higher-ups thought it would be the perfect opportunity to hit you with a little _stick_ , just as a... gentle course correction."  
  
Perhaps surprisingly, Five doesn't pull away when she drags at his cheek, frozen into his glare as she goes on, and only truly solidifies the steel he feels scoring through his bones. His brain, immediately, begins firing on every neuron he had to spare. The Handler was the only woman who could twist his creation into a _carrot_. The systematic destruction of everything that had once made him human, the twisting of his core into something carnal-- as if that was a _gift_ , something _extra_ he would get to savor once released from Commission jurisdiction. Stick. They wanted to see stick-- 

"So it was to prove a point to Westwise?" Five asks icily. He doesn't even need to bother if there was ever any fairness in the lottery. The sharklike smile on the Handler's face told him everything he needed to know about that. "What? That I'm capable? Did you need a _refresher?"_ He tries to save some semblance of face, his attempt coming up shorter than he would have liked.  
  
"Don't be silly," she says, folding the napkin over to a clean section to wipe off his other cheek. "It _was_ to prove a point, but not to _us_. To _you_." 

She taps him on the tip of the nose with a smile, and then turns around to toss the kerchief in the garbage, offering him no other information readily. Of course she would make him dig for it, she always fucking did.  
  
"And that _is?"_ Five snarls through grit teeth, really wondering if he could throw her entire desk over and get away with it without having years added to his contract for her emotional duress. He wouldn't put it past her. "I didn't need to know I could slaughter an unarmed family in the countryside, I already _knew_ that," He spits the words. He didn't know that he would derive pleasure from it, though. He could still feel it boiling like tar in his gut, untouchable and hot, unacknowledged.  
  
"Of course you knew that. But did you know we could take away your free will, autonomous choice, and rational decision making?" she asks coolly, stepping off of the foot pump for the trash can and letting the lid shut with a decisive snap. She keeps her back turned to him, just to bask in the absolute silence that follows this statement, before the sound of her skirt swishing heralds her turning around to face him again with that same sickening smile. "Now you do. So next time you get a wild hair up your ass about defying orders, or gallivanting around with people you're not supposed to _talk to_ , maybe you'll remember the Westwise family and think twice."

Five's moustache twitches, and it's probably one of the few times he's glad to have it for its ability to conceal his snarl, at the very least. Still, Five stands rooted in the spot for probably too long, not that he bothers to care about her time frame, as he allows the implication of her words to sink into her bones. If there was ever any doubt for his sanity, it was gone, replaced with the overwhelming truth that it was Her. What he might have attributed to a split in his personality, a momentary fracture in his usual steady resolve, had been an intentional fissure. The violence, the destruction, the outright cruelty towards old women, old men, even babies in their cribs. 

"Again the Commission surprises and delights." He finally says, leveling Handler with a deadpan look, his fingers still twitching with the urge to wrap around her pale throat. Instead, he stands, leaning back, wrestling his self control like one might a crocodile. He can feel his temper writhe beneath the surface just as powerfully. "Sorry about the pen holder. You can take it out of my pay," He offers with the voice of someone just barely holding on to logic. And then he turns on his heel to leave, mind as sick as his chest.  
  
"So glad we could entertain!" the Handler calls after him, but he's already long gone. 

He showers in total numb silence, washing blood off his body and down the drain. It's not even a little bit from him, he's pretty sure he made it out of that whole ordeal without so much as a hangnail or splinter. By the time he's dried off and in fresh clothes (for once, just slacks and an undershirt, too exhausted to bother putting on a whole suit when he can be reasonably certain he'll at least have a few hours to sleep between jobs) and he finds himself in his room, in his leather chair that faces the window overlooking the gardens. One of the nicer rooms, he'd been told, despite it being roughly the size of a broom closet with a wet room that doesn't even have a door-- the view was exquisite. It strikes him that he's never once set foot in those lavish gardens despite all his time working here.  
  
The shower had only helped to calm the chattering shiver of his nerves a modicum of what he needed, and although he should be using this time to sleep and eat and do all those little things that allowed him to continue operating at his peak efficiency, Five had to wonder if this was an intentional side effect of whatever fuckery The Commission had put on him. He didn't know where it could have began, how the switch could have been triggered. Pushing himself from his chair, Five stands in front of his mirror, inspecting every vital pressure point for the insidious blinking of Commission technology--effective, but pathetically obvious in most cases.

Unable to find evidence of it and still unable to calm down, Five settles for pulling on his dress shirt and buttoning it. The tie and the blazer could wait, neither required for a walk in the garden-- and he might as well take advantage of something the Commission was offering for once, even if it was just as plasticine and fake as the rest of this place, and the people in it.  
  
He's practically in a fugue state as he pulls on his socks and dress shoes, for in the next blink he finds himself already down in the gardens. It's truly an emotion something like grief clawing at his throat as he wanders listlessly through the immaculately groomed hedgerows, feeling as though his feet are only barely touching the ground. It's impossible to tell if it's a symptom of the mind control itself making him feel this light-headed, or the dark cloud of emotion he refuses to acknowledge. That cloud gets heavier and heavier the more he walks, however, until he finds himself at the center of a hedge maze, and he sits down on a bench to hang his head in his hands. 

It's then that he hears a familiar, slightly wet sound that he recognizes instantly as the noise that Rick's portals make, but he can't even muster the energy to lift his head and look. He sees the reflection of green light on his shiny dress shoes, and that's enough to confirm it, even before he hears the sound of Rick's voice. 

Rick's shoes barely hit the ground on the other side of the portal before he's already off like a shot, talking so rapidly that Five completely doesn't collect or process a single word he says at all. His ears are still ringing and his head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton, and Rick doesn't even seem to notice what a state Five is in. Then again, if Rick is willing to risk coming directly to the headquarters of a place who want him dead so ferociously as the Commission, he's probably got very little regard for his surroundings whatsoever, even including one of his best friends.  
  
A part of Five knows he should be on high alert. After all, The Handler's message to him had been perfectly clear in both intent and promise. For all he knew, the Westwise case wasn't even as severe as they'd been lead to believe, but had rather been a convenient excuse for The Commission to put Five in his place. His stomach sinks deeper with that thought, the ramifications of his actions echoing incessantly in his head as he goes down the typical lines of events, and each, branching sub-event that could have triggered in an alternate universe. He's thinking too much about the 'what if's-- that's something Five knows for certain. How many times had he told himself he couldn't change what had been done, not on this scale? If he berated himself for every shit mistake he'd ever made, Five would be agonizing for eons.

Rick is talking. Five should pay attention. Only vaguely does the excited clip of his friend's voice cut through the quagmire of speculations running rampant in his head, and vague is the fear that grips his chest, a quiet voice whispering among the chaos that Rick is Target #1.

But he's paralyzed. Rooted to the spot by agony and inaction, torn between the ramifications of his actions and ramifications of actions yet to be done. The longer Rick drones, the more he cuts through the noise, his excited clip of a pace-- Both in speech and motion, as the taller man was never one to stay still while talking, especially while talking-- crunching decorative gravel beneath his boots. And still, it isn't enough to shake Five from his reverie.  
  
In fact, it isn't until Rick makes an impatient sound and nudges him on the shoulder that Five's head yanks up, eyes dilated to pin pricks as every nerve sets itself on fire in an all-too familiar way, and all at once he's wrenched with the knowledge of just how very public they were, just how _exposed_. If The Handler wanted Rick dead, it would be now to do it, and even better because Five was right here. All at once, Five stands to his feet and grabs Rick by the shoulder with fingers that bruise and eyes that are wild. There's the soft whoosh of his powers, the feeling of a hook snagging Rick by the navel and pulling, and they vanish from the garden to reappear in Five's room, followed immediately by Five releasing Rick and taking three steps back, hands raises.

"You need to leave," He says, voice short, tone urgent. Five lunges forward to grab the portal gun from his jacket, frantically twisting the dials and shooting it blindly at the wall before shoving it into Rick's hands, "You need to leave _now_. Before something happens to you," Another quiet rush of energy and Five's at the window, staring at where they'd just been sitting in the garden. No one was around, among the plants or hanging out the windows, and while that gives him solace it offers him no true peace as he yanks the curtains shut. " _Go_ , before they see--"  
  
Rick finally takes note of Five's wild eyes and wilder actions. He looks up at the portal and then down at the gun, and quickly disengages the portal, closing it against the wall like a door. 

"What's gotten into you?" he asks, pocketing his portal gun and grabbing Five by the shoulder, turning him around. He looks crazed, eyes dilated still, gaze unfocused. He's never seen his friend in such a state, and they've known each other for a little more than a linear year at this point. According to the system of math they'd created one drunken weekend in order to calculate how long they've known one another according to multidimensional temporal spacetime, they've known one another for 408 years. Enough time for it to be a shock to see Five looking like this.  
  
Five shakes his head, movements almost imperceptibly small as he yanks away from Rick's grip, going back to look out the window, then stalking to the door to peer out his miniscule peep hole. Although short, his strides are long, furious, like a tiger in too-small a pen. "You need to _get out_ of here, Rick, I'm not kidding," He says, voice a low growl. "I can't protect you if they find you here-- in fact, I might just be the one to kill you if they have their way, and I would rather tear out my own eyes than give her that satisfaction," He only sounds half like he means to say his words, running on adrenaline and nerves. 

Turning, Five sneers like he's seeing Rick anew for the first time, "What are you doing? I told you to _go_ ," He demands, impatient.  
  
"Hey," Rick grabs Five by the shoulders to stop his anxious pacing, and though Five could teleport in an instant away from him, he doesn't. Rick's gaze is firm and his hands are firmer, rooting Five to the spot. "The Handler tried to make you kill me before, remember? Sixteen times before she gave up. Nothing changed, why are you so fucking cagey?"  
  
"This is different. She _put_ something in me," Five leans in close as he snarls the words, finally shoving Rick away with a thrust of his shoulders. His furious pacing yanks him to the bathroom, where he comes back with the stained, bloody pieces of clothing that he'd left in the sink. He throws them on the floor at Rick's feet. "I just got back from slaughtering the extended family of one of our own Assassins. I couldn't control it. You need to get out of here."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Rick steps over the bloody clothing and grabs Five by the bicep, dragging him over to the bed and pushing him down to sit on the edge of it, taking a seat right beside him. He sits sideways to face the other man, one knee crooked up on the mattress. "Explain. What do you mean she _put_ something in you?"  
  
"I don't know," Five snarls, and lurches to stand, but Rick's hold on his arm keeps him rooted to the spot, antsy. His foot bounces. "I don't _know_ what she did, but until I can figure it out, you're in danger. If she finds out you're here and activates... whatever it was that she did to me, I won't be able to stop myself, Rick." He levels a serious, deadpan look to the other man across from him. "You _need_ to get out of here. I can't emphasize that enough. There's no way The Commission can't tell who comes in and out of their space, which means it's only a matter of time before they track you to here." 

And he's gone from the bed, from Rick, back at the window, turning to look at Rick with a half-desperate, "Please."  
  
Rick quickly processes everything he's been told, and also stands up from the bed. "Whatever she did to you, we can undo it," he says definitively. "Come on, I'm Rick fucking Sanchez, I'm the guy who beat death, remember? I can do anything, you think I can't help you shake a little mind control? What is it, a chip in your brain? Some kinda russian brainwashing? Whatever it is, we can fix it. _I_ can fix it."  
  
"I don't _know_ ," Five repeats, shaking his head again. "I didn't even know it was _in_ my coding until today. I don't know if it's programming, or something finite we can remove. I've checked for their traditional bloodstream devices. I can't seem to find it, or I would have cut it out, myself." He drags a hand through his short hair, tugging at the graying remnants. "Whatever you do, you need to do it away from here. I'll go with you. If they do find you, we're fucked before you'll have a chance to help at all, and I _will_ kill you." He had a 100% success rate, after all.  
  
"You've killed me before, it didn't stick," Rick says, his voice gruff, but surprisingly soft. Rick's never seen Five this rattled before. He's always known his friend to be completely unflappable, and that's something he's ~~loved~~ admired about him from the start. Seeing Five like this is nothing short of unnerving, Rick finds himself unsettled by how afraid his friend is.  
  
"But now I know that," Five rounds on Rick, eyes wide. "Under this command there's nothing I won't do to slaughter every last contingency plan you have in place. The entire Citadel would be slaughtered if it meant me erasing you from every instance of space time-- I just did it with an entire family!" His voice is almost hoarse as he says the words. There's no mistaking the look in his eye, now. He is desperate. 

His shoulders slump, and for just a moment, he goes soft, looking back out the window, "I can't even save my family with this."  
  
"Yes you can," Rick practically launches himself at the other man and grabs him by the arms, giving him a little shake. "Shut the _fuck_ up, do you even _hear_ yourself? You're not a yokel on a string your number FUCKING Five. You're the biggest badass who ever lived, you think we can't fix this? Between the two of us we could fuck the SUN, we can do anything. Don't you _dare_ give up you crusty piece of shit."  
  
Five's jaw clenches even as Rick shakes him, and he can't bear to look at him as he's yelled at, shaking his head, "You weren't _there_ , Rick," He says seriously, hands raising to the other man's and prying them off of his collar. "I've never taken _pleasure_ in killing, before. She all but told me she would make me kill my own siblings. And I'd _like_ it." He sounds sick, with fury or with disgust, maybe a healthy serving of both. "I'm open to suggestions."  
  
"Come back to my lab with me, we'll figure it out," Rick says, his original reason for the visit all but forgotten. That can wait, it _has to_ wait. The announcement of his discovery wouldn't be well received, now. He opens a portal and steps through it first, waiting for Five to climb in after him. In all their travels and experiences, Rick had never brought Five into his space before. He does it without any fanfare, just an open portal through the wall, but it's still an incredible milestone that Rick doesn't cross with people often.

"Hop up," he pats an examination table. "Collared shirt off and lay face down, I need to get at your neck."  
  
Five spares a glance around, trying not to look too closely at anything lest he gain too much information he could use. Until this was figured out, until he knew he could be trusted not to betray Rick's trust and slaughter his entire family after being brought into his very den, Five refused to truly look at any one thing. He sees boxes, the glowing light of experiments, the cold metal of lab equipment-- And that's where he stops looking. A predator's instinct has him trying to catalogue exits and entrances, weak points and possible weapons, but Five slams up thoughts of his family, of Rick, and tugs the buttons of his shirt open without argument, following Rick's instruction and lying on the cold table. A shiver goes through him, but he doesn't complain, his body far too tight for sarcastic jibes.  
  
Rick works quickly and silently, moving Five's head from side to side as he scans over his skull and neck and even down his spine. He fiddles with the dials on the device he's using and cross-references what he can see on a nearby screen, and works in absolute quiet. The subject is too serious for banter, Five's attitude too harrowing for jokes. Rick has no commentary to make, only solemn silence as he meticulously picks apart Five's brain from the outside. 

At last he gives a soft triumphant noise. "Found it, weaselly son of a bitch," he mutters. "Yeah, it's a chip alright. Made of semi-organic biodegradable materials, that's why it was so fucking hard to find. Looks like it'd completely dissolve in about ten years ... yeah, this is nothing. I can take it out, but-- listen, hear me out. I don't think I should. I can disable it, break it so they can't use it, but they're a lot less likely to notice it's not working than they would notice it's completely gone. I think this thing needs to stay in your head, or they'll just replace it. Make it harder to take out the next time."  
  
"Do it," Five says without hesitation, still laying face-down on the table He knows better than to roll over or jar the process. If there was one thing drilled into their heads, it was that they were to remain still when receiving medical attention, or they wouldn't get any at all, as if squirming was considered an act of ingratitude. "Full disclosure, I'm not sure how my body handles anesthetic, but if you need to perform surgery I'll be able to handle the pain. Just disable it so I don't have to worry about..." Tearing Rick apart with his teeth. It went unsaid.  
  
"No surgery," Rick says as he rifles through a cabinet and pulls out a big gun of some kind, with a round metal ball on the end. He braces a hand to the middle of Five's back and presses the ball against the side of Five's head. "Your mouth's gonna taste like a penny, and if you feel like you peed yourself, don't worry-- you didn't."

With a zap that Five feels all the way down into his toes, accompanied by both the symptoms Rick mentioned, he pulls the gun away and then checks the scan again. "Alright, it's disabled. That puppy's not coming online again, and they won't be able to install a new one without putting you under. Delicate surgery, getting shit like that installed, it's not something they could freethrow from the sidelines. If they scan you at any point they should still get the ping that their little guy's in your head where it belongs, but they can't use it against you."  
  
Five remains still even after Rick's hand on his shoulder loosens, and it seems to take a bit to sink in that they'd finished, even if he does feel double strange now as the after-effects of the initial activation continue to linger, with fresh side effects from the removal process. What a strange, awful, weird day to be in his own body. Finally, when he's seemingly convinced himself of his own safety, Five pushes up, closing his eyes and opening them again to take a fresh, new breath, "That easy?" He asks, looking over at Rick, eyebrows furrowed. He should be surprised, but he isn't. The man's ability to create is matched only by his own ability to destroy.

Rubbing the spot where the gun had pressed against him, Five laughs without humor, eyes sliding away from Rick, "Figures The Commission would work on such a flimsy basis. Nothing they ever make seems to hold up to much of a beating." His words are said without humor, ringing a little hollow to even his own ears.  
  
Rick takes Five by the shoulders again, this time much less urgent, more comforting. As comforting as Rick is capable of being. He's still pretty shaken up himself, from seeing his best friend in such a state. It shouldn't effect him either, Rick himself is known for being unshakeable, but-- god damn it, this is different. He's viewed Five as practically an extension of himself for so long that seeing Five vulnerable makes him confront his own vulnerabilities in a way he doesn't like. 

Instead of offering paltry words of encouragement or placation, he just leans in and kisses Five on the mouth. It's the best way he knows how to convey everything he's feeling. _I'm angry for you. I'm sorry for you. I'm sad for you. I'd kill them for you. I'd die for you. I love you._  
  
Five goes still as he's kissed, but he sinks into it easier this time, allowing his eyes to shut as he leans in. His hands remain prone on the table, his body stiff and his brain bogged down with the muddy future that had almost been if this hadn't been found and handled. It made him nauseous to think about. How many times had he assured that he was a weapon? How deep had his knowledge of his own lethality been broadcast, as a point of pride, of respect? It was his skill and his skill alone, so he thought, augmented by The Commission's ability, sure, but still his. It hadn't so much as occurred to him what would happen if his abilities fell into the wrong hands: More than that, if _he_ fell into the wrong hands.

It would be worse than a child handed the keys to nukes. A weapon is raw power, unrefined, unharnessed. To an inexperienced wielder, even the mightiest of blades is virtually worthless. Skill is required to make a weapon truly lethal, and it was that skill that Five alone thought he could bend to ensure his safety, and those of his loved ones. To have that taken away, to have each sick little impulse turned up to eleven and directed at an enemy with no cognizant control over his actions but full mental faculties to use his abilities to their best? It would be apocalyptic. To come even close to that threat was--

Five pulls away when he feels his chest lurch, and he looks away before he can look at Rick for a minute longer. "I've never lost control like that," He says, not for the first time, staring at the floor through his feet, the burden of humanity (his own, the multiverse's) weighing heavy on his shoulders. "Thank you for taking care of it." His hand finally shifts to his shoulder, clasping Rick's where it sat and squeezing, lingering. "If that'd stayed I don't..." 

Well. He knew what he would have had to do. For everyone's safety.  
  
Rick is overwhelmed with the urge to hug Five, and while normally he would insist that any amount of vulnerability is too much for one day, the announcement he'd planned to surprise Five with would have only resulted in more vulnerability still-- so for once, he doesn't fight it. He wraps an arm lazily around Five's shoulders and rests his chin on top of his head in a crude half-embrace, letting out an angry sigh to try and unleash as much of his anger in one breath as he can. 

"Yeah. Glad I came when I did," he mutters.  
  
Five lets the warmth of the embrace fill him with a saccharine sweetness, bitter and fake, the copper tang of whatever Rick had done still thick in his mouth. It's disgust with himself, for what he'd done. Closing his eyes, Five allows himself silence as he stifles his self-loathing. There was no place for it. It served no purpose. Beating himself up over the lives he'd taken would be a joke at this point. How many countless people had he dispatched in the sake of a _balanced time stream?_ How many lives had he ended, ruined, or destroyed with an easy pull of the trigger, only to go home and make himself dinner as though nothing had happened?

It didn't matter that this was different. It didn't matter the carnage that had became of that family. It didn't change matters. They were dead now. It would have been a blessing, at the end. 

"What, uh--" His voice breaks, and he sneers, clearing it and shaking his head, leaning back to watch Rick through heavy lids, eyes never catching on his for long. "What'd you come by for? You know it's dangerous there. This development notwithstanding."  
  
Rick's chest clenches and he pulls away, clearing his throat. "We don't have to worry about that right now. Probably not the best time for it," he starts, turning around to start putting everything away that he'd taken out. It feels cheap, the idea of showing Five what he'd found now, but as he closes the drawer and Five starts to put his shirt back on, he pauses in thought. 

"Actually, you know what? Maybe now's the perfect time," he says, turning around to face the other man. Maybe Five _needs_ a hearty reminder of exactly what he was fighting for. It had been so many fucking decades since he even got a glimpse of the actual prize, he was just chasing a pitiful shadow of a daydream of a plan forged out of desperation fifty fucking years ago. Maybe this is exactly what he needs to boost his spirits and get him over that finish line. 

He grabs his portal gun and shoots it into the air, gesturing for Five to climb through first this time. Rick hops through right after, and joins Five on the side of the road, staring up at a very familiar building. The entrance to the massive Umbrella Academy mansion stretches up in the sky over them, blocking out most of the light to the street in the late-afternoon sun. People bustle up and down the streets, going about their lives, apparently none the wiser for the two men who just appeared out of thin air. 

"Now don't get too excited," Rick says, putting his hand on the stunned-still man beside him. "This isn't your dimension. But I did find the string of dimensions you came from. It took a lot of digging, but..." he shrugs, and drops his hand off Five's shoulder, truly unsure of how he'll even respond to this.  
  
Whatever Five was feeling before, it's obliterated in a manner of seconds, as Five steps out of the portal and was deposited on the very same city street he had vanished from forty-odd years ago, the ominous gates of the Academy looming over them both. The sudden, jarring change of scenery kicks Five like a horse to the chest, and he whips around, spinning in place. Things do look different-- a few of the shops have changed from the ones he remembered, the grass between the cracks in the sidewalk is longer, it's a different billboard illuminated high overhead-- but they're petty, negligible at best, and could be attributed to time alone were it not for Rick's hasty reassurance.

"Rick," Five gasps, immediately. He does another turn, "How did you-- how is this even-- I thought you said without a dimension number you couldn't--? How did you even get _this_ close?" He looks up at the other man, astonishment clearly in his face, not bothering to consider how it looks: Two old men in front of a school, one of whom kept spinning in circles. His exact dimension or not, the fact they were standing in his dimensional string at all was progress.  
  
"I sorted through by hand," Rick shrugs, sticking his hands in his jacket pockets. "Well, not by hand, I'm not a fucking _animal_ , I had a program do it. It took a long fucking time, I started this thing like-- six months ago. It sorted through about six billion dimensions a day, looking for parameters I programmed into it. Your particular string of dimensions is longer than most because there was 43 of you motherfuckers, which adds up to almost 86 million combinations of siblings Reginald could have adopted, and that's only accounting for the universes where he managed to collect only seven of you. There's also universes where he got only six of you, or eight, or twelve-- twenty, or all 43. And then on top of that there's accounting for all the different choices that all the different combinations of siblings could have made. All told I'd estimate there's so many possible permutations of your particular dimension that you have to start including carrots and asterisks and degrees of power to even record it down in one spot without running out of space for the zeroes."

He sighs, and shrugs. "That's why your only real hope of getting home is using your own powers. You're inherently connected to the universe you came from on a molecular level, so when you jump home your body will biologically know where to take you. That's not something even I can figure out. But if you tell anyone that, I'll kick your ass."  
  
It all made sense, or at least enough sense for Five not too wonder too hard about it. An offshoot of his dimension was still his dimension, and Five has to wonder how much the worlds collided. "Have you snuck around here at all?" He asks, "Met anyone? Said anything?" It gnawed at him, deep in his gut, and Five has to wonder what sort of timeline this really was. "Have you seen my siblings?" Five asks again, turning back toward the Academy and taking a tentative step forward, as if afraid of those ominous, iron gates. He can't help his gut from fluttering with hope, his heart twisting in his chest.

"...Do you think we can go see them?" Five asks after a moment, hand curled around the bar of the gate. "Or would that impede the timeline too much?" According to The Commission, every influence to the timeline was a dangerous one, but.... God, what he wouldn't give to see his family again, so close but so, so far away. Even if it meant he had to sit out here and wait to catch glimpses, Five might consider it worth it.  
  
"This isn't the first dimension that pinged on my radar," Rick admits, looking up at the building overhead. "I manually combed through a couple dozen at random to see some of the variants, and I found this one. You never ran away, in this universe. You and your siblings are about sixteen years old and still living under your father's thumb. If I've got my timeline right, they're going to be getting home from a press circuit any minute now. You could pose as a fan or something if you wanted to get close, I can distract Reginald."  
  
Five immediately hesitates, looking over at Rick sharply, "I didn't run away?" He asks, "I'm still here? Living here? Right now?" He turns back to the Academy. It was hard to say exactly what he was thinking, harder still to identify the tone in his voice. "...Maybe," he says finally, but seems to be chewing on something he doesn't explain further. It wasn't surprising he was having complex emotions about this moment, returning to a dimension of his where he didn't run away, where he was safe and arguably much happier than being stuck in an apocalypse. What was a little risk of psychosis when he could see his family again?

"If you do distract that Bastard, feel free to give him shit for me," Five says, tugging at his sleeves, the collar of his shirt. Of course he had to choose today to not wear his tie, his blazer. He looked goddamn sloppy.  
  
Rick pops the buttons of Five's cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows to make him look more casual and approachable, and flattens down his starched collar, just as the series of shiny black cars are pulling up in front of the house, for once not being followed by a throng of press. Five can remember this, how they would be paraded around in front of the press after a mission, exhausted and half delirious, made to answer the public's questions, only to then be followed home. Had they a father who cared even remotely about their emotional wellbeing, he would usher the children inside rather than subject them to a second round of questions-- but luck is on their side, as they're only followed by a couple dark paparazzi vans.

The academy kids pile out of the cars and towards the front stairs of the family home, while Rick jogs across the street, pulling a notepad out of his jacket as he goes and shouting after Reginald, immediately grabbing his ear by name dropping an expensive project he's been working on lately that he knows the man won't be able to resist preening about. And predictably it grabs his attention, leaving the kids to just loiter around the steps uncertainly. They know better than to go inside before they've been officially dismissed, but they're all exhausted and weary of answering questions already, so they just ignore the strange blue-haired man. 

Vanya sits a little ways away from everyone else while the young Five gets into an argument with Diego and Luther about which one of them had performed better on the mission, while Ben sits beside Klaus to huddle for warmth in the cold late October afternoon, and Allison drifts curiously towards her father and the weird eccentric reporter in order to listen in for any information she could use later. Vanya smooths her skirt over her knees with a sigh and props her elbow on her knee, resting her chin in her hand and reaching down to play with the autumn leaves on the sidewalk.  
  
Five watches Rick for just a moment, pulling his father aside and promptly guaranteeing his privacy with-- well, his siblings. His nerves felt like they were on fire, remnants from the day's earlier excursion making him weary and on-edge. Paradox psychosis was no joke, but from what research Five had done in the Commission libraries, it required serious meddling in one's own timeline. In truth, who was even to say if it would effect him in this one? After all, he wouldn't be creating a paradox in this timeline if he met himself, surely-- he'd be another random, weird encounter in a Universe defined by them.

He doesn't go over to the lined-up youths, not immediately. In the upper-story window he can see the faint silhouette of Mother watching proudly down at them, and a trill of nerves strikes into his heart as he watches the life he didn't get to lead. He watches himself bicker with his brothers, watches Allison smile coyly at reporters to give her take while her father is distracted-- and there, to the side, Five sees Vanya. He can feel the dagger of raw emotion pierce his heart. To see her again, to see her so grown up, still sitting so sad and alone off to the side... 

His feet move without his intention, and he teleports across the street and into the front garden, steeling himself as he appears on the grass. "Vanya," He whispers, trying to ignore the pathetic tremble in his own voice as he says it. He knows himself, knows his brothers-- they might be in that argument for as little to 1 more minute or as long as the next hour, depending entirely on how well they actually did in the fight, and how much Luther just liked to preen and pretend he held all the weight. He had to make this count, "Don't be scared," He says hastily, reaching out a hand before the alarm can reach her eyes.

A flash of black catches her eye, as Five holds his bare wrist out to her, showing the brand no one would have gotten willingly, the ominous black umbrella "I'm... a friend."  
  
Vanya's face goes through a series of emotions, then. First fright, then panic, then confusion, realization and awe all in rapid succession, her brows fluttering and pinching over hazel eyes that he hasn't had the privilege of looking into for nearly fifty years. 

"I'm not scared," she asserts with far less confidence than she wants to, but the umbrella does raise questions. If he were simply some kind of fan, the tattoo would be fresh. Even if he'd gotten it back when the academy was first announced when they were just shy of twelve, it's been only four years since then. That's not nearly enough time for the tattoo on his wrist to be as faded as it was, worn out and crossed by scars that looked almost as old as the tattoo itself. She could tell just by looking at the faint and bled-out lines that it's a tattoo that's been there for decades, at least. But that doesn't make sense.  
  
"Good," He says, even though he can tell Vanya doesn't mean it. She's fighting. She's a fighter. Vanya has always taken fear on the nose and stood to it, even when she didn't have to-- Perhaps because she thought, in her own way, this was how she could do her part. If she couldn't fight the world, at least she could stand by her siblings, unafraid of what was to come. A furtive glance is cast toward the family still bickering to the side, and Five bends down, just a little, to talk to her, so he wasn't so looming, with all the presence and grace his father had before him.

God, he hoped she wasn't looking at him like he was some proxy of Reginald. 

"It's confusing, I know, but try not to think about it too hard," Just as he was trying not to. But still, no paradox psychosis symptoms yet. Just remnants from earlier. Five scratches his neck. "It's really good to see you, Vanya. You don't know how long I've... how's the violin? You're still doing it, right?"

It was small talk, but his heart sang just to hear her voice again. He couldn't fix her predicament, couldn't fix her family or her lack of powers or that she was here at all, but he could give her a nice conversation, just for a moment.

She also stands up off the stairs in order to meet him halfway, and finds that she's actually the same height as him, give or take an inch or two, which makes her feel a lot better. "How'd you know about the violin?" she asks, but she doesn't sound guarded or suspicious-- in fact she sounds breathlessly overjoyed that anyone outside her family has any interest in what she does whatsoever. Nobody asks her questions at the press briefings, nobody's aching for a signed copy of a photograph with her, or scrambling over the last Vanya action figure when a set is shipped to a toy store. Seeing her figurine always be the last on the shelves has always been gut wrenching. But this guy isn't even glancing at her siblings, he wants to talk to _her_. It makes her feel funny in a good way. 

Scuffing her shoe shyly on the ground, she plays with her long hair, twirling it between her fingers. "It's going really well. I keep asking my dad if he'll let me try out for an orchestra, but he won't let me. I don't get why, I don't have any powers like the rest so I don't know why he wants to keep me hidden so bad."  
  
Five's entire body twitches at such a simple, sweet gesture. He wants nothing more than to close the space between them, to wrap her in his arms and teleport her somewhere she deserves, some mansion on some beautiful hill where she can have peace, and adoration, as much as anyone could give. He wants to tell her everything will be alright, that it won't matter, that this is temporary and all too soon she'll be free to live any life she wanted, free from Reginald's oppressive thumb. He wants to do all of this, but instead, Five just smiles, his eyes a little wet.

"You're young," He tells her, trying not to get lost in her eyes and failing, decades-long sentimentality rearing it's ugly, messy head, "He wants to keep you to himself for a little while. But nothing's permanent, understand? How old are you, fifteen? Sixteen?" His fingers twitch, and again he has to actively hold himself back. "Christ, you're so young," Five laughs, more to himself than her, shaking his head, "Sorry, it's-- I don't have a lot of..." again Five has to stop himself from saying something he might regret.

Shaking his head, Five starts again, "You're going to accomplish big things, Vanya. Screw dad, screw this part of your life, you're going to make something incredible out of this," He even chances a smile, "I know that you will."  
  
His words make her heart lurch in a strange way, and she squints at the older man, tilting her head slightly. The way he said _dad_ instead of _your dad_ makes her think. Always the most underestimated member of the academy, Vanya used that to her own special advantage to become an amazing listener, and something strikes her about the way he speaks. 

"Do I _know_ you?" she asks softly, looking down at his wrist again and then back up to his face, searching his bright green eyes. Eyes that look familiar. "I know I do. I _know_ you. Where do I know you...?"  
  
"I can't--" 

"Hey!" A sharp voice cuts through the cool, October air, a bark in the twilight that has the entire line of siblings turning heads to stare at them. Figures.

A blue warp of space appears between him and Vanya, and no longer is he looking at the familiar gaze of his loving sister, but locking eyes with himself, brilliant green against brilliant green. A sixteen year old version of himself, tall and proud and cut and _defensive_ stands before him, a veritable shield between this old man and arguably his favorite person. 

Good. His heart swells with pride, even as his mouth goes dry at the loss.

"Back off, what're you doing nosing around our sister?" He snarls at-- well, himself.

"Relax, I'm not hurting her. We're just talking," Five says, with one last glance over Vanya's shoulder. He offers her a relaxed, reassuring smile. There was no threat here.

"Not what I asked, numbnuts," The younger Five's insults left something to be desired. He'd be there in a decade or two. "Back off, unless you want a personal tour of what The Umbrella Academy does to people that mess with us." His hands glow, but only tinged with the faintest of blue, the air shimmering only slightly around them. Cute. Baby's first independent portal.  
  
Five raises his hands to himself, and to Vanya behind him, seeing his own eyes glance at the dark tattoo against his wrist, "Actually, it was," He corrects, his voice more amused than angry. "Unclench, kid. There's no threat here," Casting another amused smile to Five and Vanya, he nods, "Be good, Vanya," He says, staring right at her, memorizing the light in those hazel eyes like he was savoring a fine wine, then looking out over the small quarter-circle of his siblings, "And all of you."

Before they can ask more questions he teleports back down the street, behind the large janitorial van their father had parked there explicitly for use during covert operations. He glances sideways at Rick and the reporters, noticing the faint commotion that'd stirred when his presence had been discovered, and presses himself flat against the metal, waiting for Rick to notice him and return to his side, heart hammering in his chest. God, he needed a drink.  
  
Rick expertly detangles himself as a few other reporters move in to take his place, and he darts down the street to follow the place where he knows his friend disappeared to. He finds him hunched over, shaking-- crying, or laughing? It's hard to tell. 

"Hey, buddy," he puts a hand on Five's shoulder. "You did great. Almost got the shit kicked outta you by a teenager, this is a shining moment for you."

He hopes that the mood has lightened enough for him to be able to joke with his friend again, and he sits down on the ground beside the hunched figure of the other man with a groan, opening the flask from his jacket and offering it out to him.  
  
"I'm disappointed in myself. A braver me wouldn't have asked questions," Five takes the flask and pops it open, taking a deep, long drink from it. Apparently he'd been actually thirsty on top of emotionally drained, because he pulls away with a quiet gasp, "Who knew being raised in a house made you softer than an apocalypse," He laughs, shaking his head and handing it back.

Glancing sideways down at Rick, Five takes a breath, steadying his trembling nerves and blinking away the burning of his eyes, "You give that old bastard Hell for me? Tell him to go fuck himself?" He would have known if Rick had, but he could still hope.  
  
"I would've. I _wanted_ to. But I knew if I did, he would've just turned back around and unleashed his frustration on you and your siblings," Rick says, taking a drink from the flask himself. "Didn't wanna risk that. They wouldn't have deserved it no matter how fuckin' good it would have felt. I could sprint back and punch him in the back of the head on his way back in the door if you want me to, but the fiveling might try to melonball my eyes out."  
  
"More likely Diego and Luther would shit themselves trying to get at you first," Five takes the flask as it's offered to him again, pushing himself up from the van and shaking his sleeves loose. Taking another drink, he hands it back to Rick as he buttons his shirt and cuffs, scratching at his chest, his neck, "Come on, we need to get out of here. It's probably only a matter of time before they send someone around. That version of me won't take a weird event like that lightly, and I think I need some water." He hands the flask back to Rick, shaking his head.  
  
"Yeah, you full ass let him see you teleport, idiot," Rick says light-heartedly as he tucks the flask back into his jacket. "You wanna go somewhere specific? I don't think you should go back to the commission like this, you're all fucked up-- and I'm pretty sure I saw you cry." 

It's partially teasing, but it partially isn't. It's not rocket science to know Five would be emotional upon reuniting with his family. But it's also a genuine offer, because Rick knows him well enough to know that if someone from the commission saw him in an emotional state, he'd sooner light them on fire than let them walk away with the information, even if they never would have told another living soul.  
  
"Fat chance. Wishful thinking doesn't make shit true," Five scoffs loudly at Rick's assertion. He begins to pace in the alleyway, an excess of energy flooding his limbs and making him uncomfortably antsy, replacing the deep-seated sorrow that had buried itself in his throat. It was easier to expel, at least.

He does that for a minute, mind racing. Rick was right about one thing, there was no way he could go back to the Commission now. Who knew when the next time would be when Rick and his paths would cross? It wasn't like he could exactly send him a postcard requesting his presence, and their timelines diverged and merged so chaotically it was hard to anticipate any sort of pattern. He supposed they could make a date-- but then what? He was just supposed to go back like nothing had ever happened? Like he wasn't still fuming? Furious? Five shakes his head. He would never be able to live with himself if he squandered this opportunity.

"We need to find the cause of the apocalypse. Now that we're here, can you transport us forward to that date? September 4th, 2017? By my estimation it's about 2005. What's twelve years, right? If I can find out what causes the apocalypse in this timeline, I can apply it to my home timeline-- and... maybe help out, if we get there." He adds that last part a bit quickly, scratching his hand through his hair again.  
  
"Not a bad idea," Rick says, pulling out his portal gun and twisting the dials. "I'll get the ship and be right back, we're not gonna wanna be on the ground for it." 

He hops through, and Five only has a few moments to stand and scratch before the ship reappears, small enough that it fits in the alleyway. Rick cloaks it invisible and shoots another portal into the wall, flying through it and ejecting them out into the sky just a few hundred feet over the city. The umbrella academy school is down below, everyone inside peacefully waiting, likely with no idea of the doom that's coming. 

"You sure you're gonna be okay to watch this?" Rick asks. Really, they have no idea how long it'll take to hit. It could be minutes from now, or hours, and they have no idea how many of the Hargreeves are in the building below them.  
  
"I have to be," Five says seriously from the passenger's seat. He squirms in the chair, tugging at his collar and wiping the back of his neck, sneering at the moisture that had gathered there. Surely he wasn't this nervous, still. He can feel his stomach churning. From anxiety or something else, he couldn't be sure. Maybe another side effect of earlier. "Do you seriously not have anything other than liquor on hand? Can you open a portal and get me a water bottle or something? I'd rather not be drunk when watching the heat-death of my entire universe," Five snaps irritably, kicking a couple of cans in the floor well of his seat.

It was easier than looking outside, at the beautiful day, the peaceful afternoon Sun raising cool and calm as the citizens of the planet go on about their lives, naive at what was to come. Five pitied them. "From what I read, everything I could track, it happens at around 3pm. I think that was about the time it was when I got there, and if the fires were any indication it was still relatively fresh."  
  
Rick checks the clock on the dash as he opens a small portal and grabs a bottle of water that's cold when he hands it over to Five, who sucks it down like he's dying of thirst. "Looks like we got about an hour to wait then," he mutters. 

That hour is passed in anguished silence. It doesn't seem right to make conversation and risk missing any little detail. It doesn't seem appropriate to turn music on and distract from Five's desperate searching of the ground. 

Three pm hits, and the two of them wait with baited breath and clenched muscles. 3:10 passes, and then 3:15, the minutes ticking by in ceaseless agony to 3:30 and finally 4:00. Rick knows better than to startle a coiled snake, so he says nothing even longer and longer, as it turns to 5:00 and then 6:00, and the sun begins to slowly set. 

Only when it hits 6:30 does Rick finally break the hours-long silence with a soft spoken, "I'm gonna take us to tomorrow," and he fires a portal that does exactly that. They come through in the exact same spot just a few feet to the left, and sure enough, the world is still intact.  
  
"What?" Five half-stands in his seat as the portal opens onto an untouched world. The sun was shining. Different people lined the streets. But there the Academy stood, untouched and dark, just as it had the day before. Pristine. Immaculate. 

Certainly not a pile of rubble with his siblings inside. 

"That's not possible," Five pulls the book out of his pocket. Even without his jacket, it's the one thing he never leaves home without. Frantically searching through the pages, he flips through page after page of calculations and notes, chronological things he's matched up and spliced in with pages tucked into the back. By this point it resembles a well-loved almanac more than a novel written by his sister. "That doesn't make any sense," He whispers to himself, flipping between three pages, events he could muster. "It was September 4th, 2017. It _had to be_ September 4th, 2017. There was nothing printed after September 4th, 2017, I'm not making this up!" He snaps over to Rick, an answer to an unsaid accusation. His eyes are just a little wild. 

"We need to find my father. Reginald. He should be dead. He should have died on the 29th of August, there were obituaries about it. Just land, I'll find one of those and we'll--"

A siren calls beneath them, deep from the Hargreeves estate. Five goes still, staring down with rapt attention. 

Those black cars appear from down the street, and a full fleet of adult Umbrella Academy members steps from them-- Lead, ever presently, by Reginald fucking Hargreeves. "What?" Five whispers, staring through the windshield. " _What?"_  
  
"Five, hey, buddy, take it easy," Rick says, knowing better than to reach out and touch his friend when he's this wound up. "It's the infinite multiverse, remember? That means infinite possibilities. So there's bound to be a few where the world doesn't go up in fucking smoke yesterday. Maybe it doesn't happen until next week, or two years from now, or maybe it _never_ happens-- but whatever the deal is, this place isn't gonna help you. Hang on, I'll take us to the next one over."

Another portal is kicked out in front of them, and they fly through it to the dimension next door-- which also doesn't have any of the destruction Five mentioned. Nor does the next, or the next, or the one after that, all in quick succession. Rick can see Five getting more and more distraught with the idea that he somehow came from the only dimension that went up in flames, so instead of going to the next one over, he cranks the dial for the dimension one thousand iterations off this one, and this time when they sail through the portal, they're met with choked-out skies thick with smoke and red fire illuminating the columns in hellish stripes that reach towards the black blanket overhead. 

"Okay, step in the right direction," Rick says, noting his friend visibly relaxing at the sight of a horrible apocalypse. It strikes him how weird they fucking are, as he cranks the dials one last time and knocks them back to the day before, at 2:30 pm. The streets are once more intact, the people once more oblivious, and though the academy is notably made almost entirely of red brick, it's otherwise identical. "You know, it's possible that whatever causes the apocalypse isn't even close to here," Rick suggests as the cloaked ship hovers over the street. "Maybe it happens on the other side of the world. You might not learn anything new or useful sitting here."  
  
Five shakes his head, leaning back heavily in the seat so hard it creaks. He shifts anxiously in the chair, scratching at his leg through the thick fabric of his slacks. "No, it's here. Or close to it. Whatever destroyed the estate was a concentrated attack, my brother wouldn't be holding the eyeball if it wasn't," He rubs his hand down the fabric of his slacks again, palms sweaty. Since when had he sweat when he was nervous? Five's stomach begins to boil uncomfortably. "Touch down, I need to see it at the ground level, see if anyone's looking suspicious, or--" he shakes his head and shrugs, "I need to see what's going on in that house."  
  
Rick brings the ship down to the ground in the alleyway beside the building and climbs out after Five does. He alters the cloak to mask the ship to look like a dingy old lemon, and jogs after the man. 

"We can't be on the ground when it hits, Five," Rick scolds as he follows after his friend, mistaking his odd symptoms for anguish, anxiety and anger. "If you get caught in the blast y-- you're fuckin' toast, buddy. Hasta la pasta."  
  
"Then we won't get caught will we?" Five snaps over his shoulder as he stalks the street across from his childhood home. He needs to see it for himself, nudging the rusted gate with his foot. Whereas the previous iterations of the Universes and this one all shared the same building, this one looked pointedly less kept. The grass was overgrown and browning, the gate rusted and chained shut with a crude lock. He scowls, looking at it. Judging from the footsteps there had been recent activity, but it was by no means regular. In fact, it looked like the house hadn't been used as a proper home for years. 

Five wracks his brain trying to think of likely scenarios. "There was an impact site a few blocks down," He says, tugging at the collar of his shirt, "Something hit there, and here, the exact same way, I just have to figure out _what_ ," He says, his voice practically animalistic at this point as he yanks at his collar, wipes another sponge-worth of sweat from his forehead and neck. Quietly, hopefully so Rick didn't hear, he passes gas, unable to control himself as his stomach churns and rebels. 

To cover, he turns over his shoulder and shouts, "If you're scared just go back to the ship and wait for me. I'll find you before this all starts and we can figure something else out-- WHAT'RE YOU LOOKING AT?" He snarls at an old man who'd nudged him, rounding on the man, "Can't you see I'm walking? FUCK OFF--"  
  
Rick was about to prepare an argument that he wasn't scared, but it's not exactly true. He's not scared for whatever's coming-- whatever it is, he's guaranteed to have already experienced worse. What he _is_ scared of is the way Five's acting. He'd seen him rattled earlier today, but this is almost worse. This mania-- did _he_ cause it? Did he fuck up the chip somehow? No way, he wasn't ever wrong. But something is very clearly wrong with Five, and he's starting to regret this entire trip. The purpose was to make Five feel _better_ , not... this. 

So instead he just grabs Five by the shoulder. "HEY, quit being an asshole," he snaps, as the old man scurries away, and the clock ticks closer and closer to three pm.  
  
"The fuck is YOUR problem?" Five rounds on Rick, shrugging off his hand and pushing him, both hands centered on his chest. His hair is flattened to his forehead now with sweat, the moisture seeping through both his undershirt and collared shirt atop of it. He shifts from foot to foot, scratching again at his chest, his arm. "I'm trying to find out the reason my entire Universe goes up in flames, and you're worried about the feelings of one old sack of SHIT?" He whirls to spit the word at the man's back.

He steps away, throwing his arms in the air, "They're all going to die ANYWAY! It's doesn't matter what I say! What matters is finding out what causes the _fucking_ apocalypse so I can go back and save my goddamn family, and if you're not going to help me DO THAT, then maybe you need to leave me to it and you can pick me up when it ends!" His eyes are dilated to pinpricks, teeth clenched in a snarl like a feral animal.  
  
Rick is about to argue when a sudden trembling underfoot catches the attention of both men. Rick looks down at the ground instinctively, as if it'll afford him any kind of information, as all the people in the street pause and look around with the same bewildered expression. When Rick looks back up, Five is already sprinting down the street, like he even knows where he's going or what he's looking for. 

"Five!" Rick shouts, running after him, just as a colossal beam of white light shoots out of somewhere in the city and straight up into the sky. It pierces and evaporates a hole through the clouds and zings off into the atmosphere, and the resulting shockwave from the beam itself rockets through the city. Debris is carried on a wave of wind that knocks Rick clear off his feet, but Five teleports out ahead of it before it has a chance to touch him. Through the sounds of people screaming in terror as the sky darkens ominously, Rick looks behind him only to see that his car had been totaled in the blast. It would have been an easy fix if they had the time, but they don't. 

With his hands and knees bleeding, he scrambles back up to his feet and goes sprinting full tilt after Five, who he can barely see through the commotion and fog of settling dust, and though he's certain his friend can't hear him shouting his name over the panicked populace, he sure does shout it anyway.  
  
Five barrels and pushes his way through the masses, only vaguely aware of Rick shouting his name behind him. But with the combination of his powers and the urgency trilling fear deep into his gut, Five doesn't slow down for a minute, nor does he hesitate to plow ahead. There was a crash site a few blocks down, he'd known that from his time in the Wastes, but this wasn't a crash, it was a _laser_ \-- Which meant that something was causing it. It didn't take a telescope to see the molten, burning eruption that had splintered on the early-showing autumn moon, now only barely visible among the dust-filled sky.

The laser had turned off after it'd fired, but Five had the location memorized, or at least some semblance of it, and he begins to shove more and more people aside with the callous cruelty of a man unhinged, clawing through the crowds before beginning to teleport to the tops of cars to make his way through-- as overhead, the telltale shape of two meteors begin to breach the Earth's atmosphere, earlier, smaller boulders hitting the ground and sending shaking tremors through the entire city block-- tremors that Five ignores in lieu of pushing ahead, desperate to find answers.  
  
He feels a body hit him in a way he never would have allowed to happen if he were in his right mind, but there's something wrong in his brain. Something making him misfire at almost every opportunity. He can't think straight, his thoughts are all instinct-- maybe it's a PTSD episode, maybe it's a result of the chip being used earlier that day, or maybe Rick failed to disable it and it's being used again after all-- he can't even think clearly enough to rationalize which is the most likely. 

He hits the ground just in time for a building to come crashing down, and he rolls out of the way, teleporting several yards to the side, whirling around to unhinge his jaw and _eat_ the person who just dared to touch him-- just in time to see the white flutter of a lab coat as it's flattened beneath a wall of rubble that comes crashing down on top of Rick.  
  
"Rick?" The name leaves him before he can stop himself, and just like that the rage drops from his body. He can still feels the rest, but they seem less urgent now, less important when faced with the devastating truth of what he'd just seen. Immediately, his thought of finding the source of that laser go out of his head, and instead of turning toward the beam he turns away, with the flow of the crowd even as they'd scattered to avoid the falling building. Five teleports through the throng, landing at that white flutter of his jacket and falling to his knees.

He's frantic, fingers going bloody as he rips and pries hunks of debris and glass away from where he can still see that shard of white, "RICK! Rick, hang on, I'm coming-- I'm getting you, Rick, keep breathing!" He says, his voice breaking with desperation as he sees the first shock of blue hair, his efforts doubling, then tripling as he's encouraged by more and more of his friend, digging like a man crazed-- but for an entirely different reason, this time. "Rick, stay alive you fucking bastard, you better stay FUCKING alive--" The world continues to shake and tremble around them, and as the sky begins to turn that familiar, rusty orange, Five realizes all at once just how fucking sick this was.

Of course he would bring his best friend into the apocalypse and get him killed. Of course this stupid fucking death day event would take EVERYTHING from him, AGAIN. His eyes burn with hot desperation, but he ignores it to continue to dig, until he can almost entirely see his torso, and head, "RICK, I'm here, lift your head, lift your head, Rick-- come on--"  
  
Rick groans miserably as he's roused. His head feels cottony, his mouth dry. Remarkably he doesn't feel any pain-- but he knows that's a bad sign, not a good one. He pushes up onto one elbow, but it's all he can manage. His other arm is in such a state of twisted agony that he can't even move it, it's probably only being held on by the sleeve of his bloodied jacket. 

"Jesus _christ_ ," Rick grumbles like he's just been inconvenienced by a building landing on top of him, even as one of his eyes is swollen shut and bleeding, and it looks like he's completely lost one of his ears. He coughs in the dust and braces his forehead against a piece of rubble so he can use his only hand to pat himself down, reaching down into the debris and finding his portal gun miraculously intact. A little banged up, but it's still humming when he drags it up and out of the mess.

"Listen," he spits blood on the ground. "I'm too fucked up to get outta this one. I can't feel anything which means my spine's crushed. I'd be shocked if my torso's even attached to my legs anymore, it's gotta be a fucking mess down there. I'll wake up back in my lab, but you gotta get out of here."  
  
That was certainly not what Five wanted to hear. "What?" He asks, staring at him in abject horror. Only now that his head is raised and Five can see the extent of the damage does the nature of what had happened begin to sink in, and the horror of losing his friend actually strikes home. "That's ridiculous, I can get you home, we can--" Another massive tremor shakes the ground as another few pieces of rubble hit home, and Five's head snaps to the sky. A massive meteor, easily a large enough size to make the crater he'd found in the Wastes, begins to puncture the Earth's atmosphere, burning at the edges at it went. Around them the distant sound of screams could be heard, even if there were only a few people still fleeing the epicenter they had found themselves in.

Five stares at the gun, looking up at the meteor to Rick, "How will you get it back?" He asks, his voice a little shaky, a little tenuous. "I can't leave you stranded in your dimension, Rick, when will I even _see_ you again--?" Their time now was more fleeting than ever, and unless he wanted to get stuck in the future with his goddamn self, he couldn't actually stand to argue for very long. His fingers, bloodied from digging and from touching his friend, slip on the smooth plastic handle.  
  
"I have more than one portal gun, don't be stupid," Rick coughs roughly, spitting blood again. "I put in the coordinates for your room, get _out_ of here. Break that thing to shit when you get back, do your job like normal, don't be suspicious, and I'll find you. You gotta _go_." 

It's a sickening parallel to earlier that morning, when Five was frantically telling Rick to leave the room when he arrived shepherding what he thought would be good news for his friend. Maybe he should have listened and left. Maybe they could have avoided all this grief. Rick can't imagine this is going to have positive long term effects on his friend's mental health.  
  
Five feels more furious tears of frustration prick at his eyes, and he kneels on the ground beside Rick, hands curling into the hair at the back of his head as he presses his forehead flush with the other man's, "I'm sorry, Rick," He whispers, voice cracking, "I'm sorry." He kisses Rick one last time, ignoring the copper tang of blood on his lips before his hand jerks, and he snaps Rick's neck with a hollow crunch. There was no reason for him to die like that, bleeding out and barely sentient, hurting everywhere he could still feel until he was incinerated. 

The sky goes dark as the sun is blacked out by the meteor. Five stands and opens the portal, going through it and throwing the gun against the wall once back home. His back hits the wall with a thud, his arms curl around his waist, and he slides down the wall as he finally allows himself to sob, his world crumbling to ashes as the portal closes behind him, leaving him alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Rick has a lot to think about after he comes stumbling out of the tank back home, falling to his knees and coughing up amniotic fluid. The phoenix protocol is always a little rattling, and it leaves him fatigued and raw, tears claiming him first that flow freely and loudly. When he pulls himself together and gets a robe around his skinny body, he's left with a lot of questions and a lot of doubts. 

While he knows it would be easy to just turn around, grab a portal gun and rematerialize in Five's room back at the commission seconds after his return there, Rick feels paralyzed to do exactly that. He's never been very good at confronting his own failures before, and that whole mess is just one colossal failure. In his attempt to comfort his friend, he fucked him up worse and nearly got him killed. Story of Rick's fucking life. 

He hates himself for thinking how easy it would be to just never return. How easily it could be blamed on the phoenix protocol messing up somehow and just failing to catch him. It's not likely that Rick's tech would fuck up, but before today he would tout how unlikely it is for him to fuck up in general. It would be shamefully easy to just let Five suffer the consequences of everything that happened today and just never have to deal with him again. Never have to deal with the emotional turmoil and guilt, never again have to see the pain in his eyes or worry whether his friend will accomplish his mission. The only thing truly preventing him from being able to cleanly cut ties is Five knowing what dimension he's from, and being able to come after him to check on him. And he hates himself worse for thinking _that_ might be the thing that makes it hard for him to make the final decision to abandon Five completely, and not his feelings for or loyalty to the man himself.  
  
But the frustrating thing about having a best friend who can both time travel and spacially jump through dimensions is knowing for a fact that if Rick was going to go through with his plan to abandon Five, it will have already happened in linear time, and Five would already be jumping back in time to check on his friend and see what went wrong where. Five would already be in front of him, asking questions, demanding to know where Rick had gone. But Rick's house is empty. His lab is empty. Five isn't here, which means Rick already knows he goes back. 

Not surprising. He knows in his heard he never would have been able to stay away from Five for long. 

He does give him a little time, though. Both because he needs the time to actually assemble a new portal gun (it hadn't been a LIE when he said he had access to more than one, but building these things takes a little time, it's delicate wiring) and because he can't bear to come back to Five when things are so fresh. He can't see him right after the event, can't bear to watch him break down. He knows he fucked up, but he can't witness the consequences or he'll flag and run like the coward he knows he fucking is. 

He tunes his portal gun to the commission tracker so he can keep track of where Five's located, and as soon as he jumps to a new dimension on a new commission job, Rick steels himself, fires a portal, and climbs through the wall of the motel room Five is currently sitting in, slumped on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.  
  
Five's lucky, ultimately, that The Commission's preferred mode of preventative measures is business. Keeping Five busy, keeping Five occupied, was surely the only way to keep him distracted. Overwhelmed by minor infractions, Five was kept quite occupied the next following week. All minor jumps, barely things that would register on a scanner, missions that didn't require Five to stay longer than a few hours in most cases. It leaves his days packed, with just enough prerequisite time for his powers to charge between onslaughts.

Keep him tired, keep him beaten. Five couldn't teleport anywhere if he had no juice to teleport with.

In the end, he's glad for it. He was sure they'd known something was amiss when they'd busted into Five's room not ten minutes after he'd disposed of the portal gun properly, giving him just enough time to mourn and pick himself back together for the grunts with guns pointed at his half-naked body-- having taken another scalding shower to give his face for the excuse of being red.

Another meeting with Handler, another clipped, chilling threat, and Five had been sent out without care or compassion for his wellbeing. Until tonight. It was a surprising luxury, his first reprieve in eight days, a chance to breathe. So of course now it was hard to find time to. He doesn't bother slipping out of his jacket or his tie, wonders if he'll see his friend again. Surely Rick would have appeared by now, but then-- how could he have? A chill ran through him at the concept of the Phoenix protocol, the flawless piece of equipment that would bring his friend back.

So what if it hadn't? It was those thoughts he'd been trying to avoid, clutching his head to his chest-- And it's those thoughts that go out the window as Rick materializes in front of him.

He's up before he realizes, has his arms around him before he realizes. Five buries his face in Rick's chest and squeezes him tight, kissing at his throat, "Asshole--" His lips find Rick's.  
  
Rick expected anger, at least. He expected outrage. He expected blame, for Five to scream at him for all the things he'd done to fuck him up. He expected grief and fury and a flurry of blows-- not this. He supposes that it's because of his family that he expects to be blamed so heavily for everything that goes wrong. He's surrounded by people who would rather push off any kind of blame or responsibility onto anyone else if it meant not having to face any consequences-- but he should have known better than to expect that from Five. Five has never been like them. 

"Hey, hey, come on," Rick shepherds him back to the bed and sits down on the edge with him, letting the much shorter man lean his full weight into him, and he wraps his arms around him in kind, practically cradling him in his lap. He really is small, Rick thinks not for the first time. "I told you I'd be back. I said I'd find you. What, you didn't believe me?"  
  
"I'm _relieved_ , jackass," Five says hotly as he half-straddles Rick's legs. His fingers comb through Rick's hair, trail down his neck and press comfortingly against his shoulders. They continue their trace down like he's trying to memorize every curve of his muscles, and remind himself of every mole on his skin. "I shouldn't have hurt you like that. I shouldn't have freaked out." His tone wasn't self-effacing or pathetic but _angry_ , matter of fact. His lips follow the trail of his hands, his fingers slinging low to count across his ribs even as his lips kiss at Rick's jaw.

The warm spread of Five's palm finally stops over his chest, fingers broad across sternum, just across his heart. Five presses his forehead against Rick's shoulder, breathing him in as he feels his heartbeat, reassuring and as strong as ever. "I'm sorry I got you killed, Rick," Five leans back to look at him, seriously, in the eye, gaze unwavering, "I'm glad you're okay."  
  
"Not the first time," Rick reminds him with humor in his voice. His whole body is clenched as if preparing for an attack. Things don't usually go this well for him. People don't usually _forgive_ him. He's used to people turning him away, shutting him out, turning him down, this is... new. He should have known all along that Five would be the one to break the pattern. That's why he let himself get so close to Five in the first place, after all.

His arms seizing around Five's waist, he turns to drop the smaller man's back to the bed and leans over him just for the pleasure of laying on top of him. His heart is pounding, some part of him expecting the worst even as he blankets his body on top of his friend's. He knows he's in too deep, he knows Five is the kind of friend who could seriously ruin Rick's life because of how much of it he's allowed Five to see. He knows he should pull back and maintain a safe distance, but all he wants to do is pull in even closer. 

So he says softly against Five's shoulder, "Are you busy? On a job right now?"  
  
Just the warmth of Rick's body over Five's has him arching his hips up, spreading his legs wide to let himself feel Rick as much as possible. He wants him pressed against him, wants to be able to feel the humming of his chest for himself, his arms wrapping around Rick's neck to hold himself up, head ducking to breathe into the soft spot behind Rick's ear.

Five breathes him in, eyes shutting as he allows himself to just feel grateful for Rick's presence, for simply holding him close, with no expectations. A hand finds Rick's hair again, carding through without pulling, tangling for the pleasure of feeling him, "I have time," He assures, "I don't need more than an hour to kill this guy. They gave me a day and a half." It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd had in a while, and if he could spend it with Rick? Even better.  
  
Now would be the time to backtrack. The words hadn't left Rick's mouth yet, he could just ask Five if he wanted to go somewhere and fuck around. It would be believable, that's what he offered most often. Five would be none the wiser to Rick's initial plan for coming here. And really given the disaster of last week, he should know better than to stray off the beaten path and try to do nice things for his friends. But maybe Rick's just a glutton for punishment because when he opens his mouth next the words come out unbidden,

"Do you wanna meet my family?"  
  
Five pulls away at that, eyebrows furrowed. He wasn't stupid. Stricken by sentiment and overwhelmed my emotion, yes, perhaps a bit emotional, certainly-- but not stupid. It didn't take a genius to know that family was something Rick held very closely to his chest, a final bastion, of sorts. Five didn't talk about his family much, but Rick talked about his _less_ , and aside from the occasional rant about his grandson, Five couldn't say he knew a whole lot about the Sanchez clan. 

"Fair's fair," He mutters, finally, smiling cattily up at him, eyes bright, "I showed you mine, you show me yours," and he closed the space between them with another kiss, his body alight.  
  
Rick leans into the kiss, arching up onto his elbows and dragging his body up Five's chest to meet him halfway. Settled comfortably between Five's legs he angles his head to press tongue into tongue, teeth against teeth, panting through his nose as he tightens his fingers across the back of Five's neck. He breaks the kiss only to trail his mouth across Five's jaw to his throat, breathing hard against his skin. 

"You should go kill that guy," he says, making absolutely no move to get up off Five's body, biting kisses down his neck and sucking a mark below his collar as he pries the top button open.  
  
"You're probably right," Five replies enigmatically as his hands drag down the sinewy muscle of his back, pulling again, urgently at his shirt. His jaw tilts, gladly giving Rick full access to his throat, the bristle of his jaw dragging against the stubble of his own, delicate skin burning where his mouth had passed. Five's fingers slip up his shirt, nails digging into the skin of his back to pull Rick down against him, grinding his body against the other man's.

Five's breath is heavy in Rick's ear, warm and full as his hand travels south, nails scratching across Rick's lower back, just above the hard line of his belted slacks. If he was smart-- which he was-- he could make it 30 minutes. Probably. If he left now. Five makes no motion to leave.  
  
Rick grunts into Five's mouth, overwhelmed, overcome with feelings he thought he was too old and too washed-up to have. Feelings of butterflies in his stomach, a hopefulness he was certain dried up and went crusty years and years ago. Five feels real to him in a way few people have managed to in his life. They've been through hell and back, now in a quite literal sense. It feels as though there's nothing they couldn't accomplish. Nothing they couldn't survive. 

Really, he's gotta start working on something to keep Five alive longer than the average human. He might be in excellent shape, but Rick's not about to get just ten or fifteen years with this man, not when he himself is gonna live forever. Maybe if he could just get a little DNA from him... he never had given him a straight answer on whether he wanted a phoenix protocol of his own... 

His thoughts are scattered when Five's hips jump up against his and he groans into his mouth again, biting and then sucking the other man's tongue as he grinds down against him, tugging open the buttons of his blazer so he can get at his shirt, desperate to untuck it and get his hands on his skin.  
  
A quiet, rumbling chuckle leaves Five's throat and chest, and he's never been so happy to sound so self assured and cocky. "You're eager," He mumbles, as if his own fingers aren't just as urgent, as if his own legs don't part and curl up so he can draw Rick down into himself and fit their bodies together like two puzzles finding their missing piece. For a slim man, a larger man, Rick had never felt gangly or awkward. Five had never struggled to feel at home pressed against his skin, his smaller, bulkier frame complementing Rick's.

For all his teasing, Five's breath is just as warm as Rick's. His fingers dragging with just as incessant a burn as they trace along the bone of his hip as he holds Rick above him, keeping him still as he grinds up against him again. There's a surge of power that ignites deep in his gut at Rick's groan, wanting to chase that urge, to pay homage to the man who had given him so much-- and asked for so little in return. 

"You should stay," He mumbles, and it almost sounds like a plea, as if there was any doubt in his mind Rick would. Five still makes no motion of leaving, his hand slipping forward to cup against his crotch indulgently, heel grinding into him. "Order room service." As if that was on either of their minds, Five's lips disengaging from Rick's to kiss at the nape of his neck, tongue dragging over the warm bob of his adam's apple.  
  
Rick grunts like an animal, dropping his forehead to Five's shoulder as he gropes him by the dick. He's not wearing underwear, obviously-- he _never_ wears underwear, so the pressure of Five's warm hand seeps into his skin just through the fabric of his slacks. Rick feels soft, he always finds himself so fucking _soft_ for Five. Rick has always been so tightly guarded, so careful not to let his true feelings be known-- but he just fucking died to save the man bucking under him. There's nothing left to hide. There's nothing left for Rick to pretend or lie about, to hide from. He's already been laid completely bare for this man. 

"I'm not goin' anywhere," he grumbles, dragging his teeth behind Five's ear and grinding down into his hand.  
  
"Good," Five breathes, tilting his head up and over to capture Rick's lips in another kiss, burning only in intensity of passion, and gentle everywhere else. His lips bruise, but his teeth never bite, his tongue insistent, but never an intrusion. For all the heat in their hands, there's a surprising amount of care that goes into every intentional stroke and grind of their bodies, and Five revels in it. Maybe he's the slow one, for thinking his life could ever feel alright in Rick's absence. Nothing would be alright, not until he could find himself back here, beneath a man he loved.

Huh. When had he fallen in love? 

Five presses lingering kisses across Rick's jaw and throat, smiling as he does. Maybe he wasn't as scared of love as a bitter man like him should have been. Maybe with Rick it just seemed natural. Either way, Five kisses the other man above him one last time, before with a quiet whoosh he's gone, standing on the other side of the room, tightening his tie and picking up the slim briefcase that contained his rifle, "Stay," He says, eyes dancing-- and with another quiet sound he's gone, faster than one could blink.  
  
Rick drops down to the bed those few inches in Five's absence, and rolls over to watch him button his blazer and disappear to go get work done. The silent stillness of the room sinks in, and as Rick realizes he's alone and nobody can witness his vulnerability, he truly lets it come out. He rolls onto his back and silently kicks his arms and legs on the mattress, flailing some of the energy out of his body. 

It went _okay_. Five's not mad at him, he doesn't wanna never see Rick again, he's okay, they're _okay_ , everything is **_okay_**. It's almost more than he can stand to believe. Rick is used to having to fight, work and bleed to _make_ things okay, and even then it's usually just a return to the way things were before. A rebalancing of the status quo. With Five, it feels like things have changed-- but for the better. Rick has nothing else to hide from Five. 

So he just rolls over face down on the bed again, grabs a pillow, and does the one thing he hasn't let himself do once through this entire ordeal: he cries.  
  
It unfortunately does take the whole hour, mostly because Five had lost his schedule on the man when he'd decided to spend his time cavorting with Rick. It was unfortunate, to be sure, but what was one hour when they would have the rest of the day to indulge in one another-- and to meet Rick's family, a thought that doesn't ever stray too far from Five's mind, even as he looking down the sights of his rifle. Should he stop somewhere before they go? What sort of meeting was this?

Wine. He'll bring wine, Five decides as his finger pulls the trigger and his target's head evacuates from his body, popped like a balloon. This would usually be the part where he calls in the Commission to verify the corpse and confirm the kill, but with these quickie missions it was mostly taken on good faith. 

Still, The Handler demanded some proof. So, teleporting from his rooftop to the ground, Five snaps a picture with phone, tucking it into his pocket even as he teleports away. Next stop, find a place that would sell him liquor this late.

He ends up breaking into a corner store and taking one of the most expensive vintages off of the shelf, knowing very little about wine, for all he'd drank his fair share of it. It hadn't been his liquor of choice in the Wastes, and the stuff he'd brewed himself was absolutely vile, but logic would say that a good name and price tag meant good quality-- even if, in his experience, that usually translated to a much worse flavor.

Five returns with briefcase in one hand, bottle of wine in the other, setting his rifle down and looking over to the bed with Rick on it with a fond smile, one he doesn't bother to hide. There would be a time for their sarcasm to hide their emotions again, where obligation and circumstance would demand their bitter, callous veneer. But for now, he shamelessly enjoyed the vision of his lover sprawled in bed, clearing his throat to get his attention. "We should go before you tempt me to distract you," He chides, "Minx."  
  
" _Minx_ ," Rick repeats. Nobody has ever called him a _minx_ before and it makes his chest do something weird (that he would later understand was a boyish fluttering of the heart) and he sits up off the bed. He hadn't gotten room service only because he's sure his daughter will want to cook them dinner when they get back, but he SURE did jerk off. Twice. Five's a dick for leaving him high and dry, but he's not even mad about it. 

He stands up and comes up behind Five, reaching around him to undo the button of his blazer, and then the strap of his shoulder holster, leaning down to kiss the side of his neck as he helps him shrug out of it and put his blazer back on. Like a fucking married couple helping one another get dressed. It would be disgusting if Rick wasn't fucking living for it. 

"I already called Beth to let her know to keep Morty in the house tonight." he says, playing with Five's tie and generally being a nuisance.  
  
"Think there'll be hard feelings since I tried to kill him?" Five drawls, amused as he allows Rick to fuss over him. His hands curl around Rick's waist indulgently, fingers hooking into his ass and pulling him flush against his waist again. They were supposed to go to dinner, but what could Five say? He was a glutton. Always had been.

He glances at his holster set to the side, humming curiously even as his fingers knead openly into Rick's skin, a rumbling purr set deep in his chest, " _And_ you're making me go unarmed? If I was a suspicious man, I'd think you'd been playing a long con just to get at me." And in truth, the thought had crossed his head. Whether a Commission operative trying to prove his negligence or a competitor wanting whatever genetic slurry ran through his plasma, it wasn't unlikely he could be taken.

It would just be a poor idea for any motherfucker who tried it. 

Raising higher on his feet, Five leans in to close the space between them, his moustache tickling Rick's nose. "Let's go, before I really _do_ keep you to myself." It sounds like it almost pains him to say it, but it was his duty to keep them on track. Rick was notorious for keeping Five wrapped up in him at all hours, and one of them had to be the responsible one.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, fine," Rick mutters, disentangling himself from Five so he can pull out his portal gun and shoot it at the wall. He climbs through first and the portal shuts as soon as Five climbs through after him. Whatever Five had been expecting, he's shocked to find himself standing in the front hall of a... remarkably normal looking house. It's just a suburban home, with a dining room off to the left and stairs to the second floor to the right, an archway into the living room directly across from them. The walls are a faint pink and the floors are hardwood. It's just... a house. 

"Dad, is that you?" a voice calls from the kitchen, visible through the second shotgun doorway, and a blonde woman appears, drying her hands on a dish towel. Her brow furrows at the sight of the second man. "Who's this?"

"Beth, this is Five," Rick answers, stepping aside to let the shorter man step forward. "Five, my daughter Beth."

"Friend of yours?" she offers a hand out to Five to shake.  
  
"Oh, the best," Five says with a tight smile. He wasn't one for charm, not in the traditional sense. There aren't any bold examples of smooth finger-kissing or charming words. The fact Rick lived in a normal house at all was throwing him for a loop, the suburban neighborhood practically giving him hives. Five wasn't aware people like Rick lived in places like this. It was so outside the realm of what he was used to, a part of him felt like a fraud for even being here.

Still, he takes her hand and shakes it, politely enough. As politely as he could manage. He felt like he'd walked onto the stage of a sitcom, and a ponytail of red hair turns at the unfamiliar voice, Summer's fingers clutched around her phone.

"Oh, you brought another old guy. Cool," She drawls without getting up, turning back to look at her phone, "Is he going to shoot lasers or something?" 

Five glances at Rick, looking from the girl to Rick, then to Beth. Honestly, a little delighted.  
  
"Summer, my grand daughter," Rick explains, and then cups his hands around his mouth to shout up the stairs. "MORTY! GET DOWN HERE!" 

"COMING!" Answers Rick's shout, but it's distant, clearly behind a locked door and down a hallway. While Rick waits for his grandson to comply, he follows Beth back into the kitchen with Five, sitting down at the island with him on stools while Beth pops the lids off two beers and hands them off to the two men. 

"If you told me you were bringing company I would've started dinner earlier," Beth says as she starts pulling ingredients out of the fridge. "Does meatloaf sound good?"

"Oh, Beth's meatloaf," Rick dramatically chef kisses his fingers. "She covers it in bacon and fucking paints it with barbecue sauce."

"Okay, don't give away all my secrets," Beth grins, immediately charmed by her father's praises. 

"I haven't had meatloaf in almost 53 years, so if it's anything like what I remember I'm sure it'll be incredible," Five adds. Meatloaf sounded _very_ good. 

Summer comes into the kitchen to grab a soda, and leans against the other side of the counter, scrutinizing Five up and down before flat-out asking, "So are you like, a time traveler?"  
  
"For the most part," Five answers Summer enigmatically, giving her a scrutinizing look as well, without much heat. She was an older teen, but a kid was a kid, and Five wasn't an animal. After last week, it strikes a familiar chord in his chest. This could be Allison. Vanya. 

Taking a drink of his beer, Five is happy to watch Beth cooking, the surprising comfort of the house charming, if a bit surprising, "So, I take it you're all familiar with Rick's work?" He asks, glancing sideways at the man. Maybe not the extent, certainly not the extent, but for them to be so casual about it was... Enviable. Five envied him.   
  
"Yeah, Grandpa takes me and Morty on adventures all the time," Summer answers, playing with the tab on her soda. "He doesn't usually bring people home, though. Except Birdperson."

"How did you and my dad meet?" Beth asks as she unloads shredded beef and pork into a bowl, and measures out bread crumbs to pour on top. "Are you like, business friends, or friend friends?"

"Friend friends," Rick answers before Five has to worry about getting cagey, wondering how much he's allowed to admit. Morty still isn't downstairs. Five wonders if he saw him and ran back upstairs. He doesn't let it bother him. 

"I was technically working when we met," Five admits, giving Rick a sideways look over his bottle as he takes another drink, "Rick had ideas about a company I was hired to protect the integrity of. Fortunately we came to an agreement." And he smiles at his own explanation, even if it was intentionally misleading.

His tone is polite, reserved, as he gives Summer another look, "How old are you? 17?" It wasn't said in a predatory way, and he could only hope Rick wouldn't give him shit for the hidden sentimentality later. He was sure the man would be able to peg its origin, but he hoped Rick wouldn't rub it in.  
  
"About to turn 18," she answers. "Gonna go off to college next fall. I'm graduating in like, two months." Taking a sip of her soda, she effortlessly hops to the next subject with a matter-of-fact, "I really like your hat. It's so daddy. Really cool of you to wear like an old-timey suit to modern times. Did grandpa even tell you what year it is? It's 2020."

"Summer, don't say daddy," Beth scolds from the other side of the kitchen as she cracks eggs into the meat bowl.  
  
Five laughs, good natured, at her remark, not entirely understanding the descriptor. Even her mother's chastising made Five's gut go hot at the familiarity of it all. So, this was what an actual family was like. "2020 isn't so bad. I'm from anywhere between 2005 and 2055. I got the hat in the 50s, by the way. 1950, not 20."

"Tight," Summer smirks.  
  
"Do you work, Beth? Or are you a stay at home mother?" Why was he having such a fine time talking to these people? It should be making him cagey, anxious-- Instead, he seemed to lean in, blooming at the civil, easy attention.  
  
"I'm a horse doctor," Beth answers as she digs her hands right into the meat to mix everything together by hand, to ensure the maximum possible level of ingredient integration. "I specialize in surgery. My husband Jerry is currently out of work and has been for almost three years," she says, the smile on her face not reaching her eyes and her tone more than a little bitter. 

"Jerry sucks," Summer says casually, and then fist bumps Rick when he offers it. "Anyway, call me when dinner's ready, I'll be in the living room watching tv."

"What do _you_ do?" Beth asks, changing the subject away from her husband. "You said you're a time traveler? Are you like men in black?"  
  
Five had just taken another drink of his beer as Beth had asked the question, and he swallows quickly before he answers, "Less emphasis on aliens, more emphasis on time. I maintain my dimension and its parallels' timeline. Make sure all the right stuff happens at the right time, that sort of thing," He says, finishing his beer and setting it on the counter, "Think I could get another one, sweetheart?" He asks, before looking around the house. "You have a wonderful home, by the way. Really warm. I like it. You said you had a husband? Will he be joining us for dinner?"  
  
"If I can unglue his butt from the recliner in his den," she says dismissively as she washes her hands and hands Five another beer. 

Rick is sitting at his side just watching his friend interact with his family, feeling warm in his chest. As dangerous as it is to have people in his life who could unquestioningly be used against him because of how much they mean to him... it's also _really_ fucking nice. He maintains a healthy emotional distance from Beth, Summer and Morty not because he doesn't actually care about them, but because it keeps them safer in the long run if Rick's enemies think they can't be used as leverage. Five can handle himself, though, Rick has no fear about Five being incapable in a hostage situation, and so he can approach the warmth in his chest without fear. 

"I'm gonna go beat the lead out of Morty, hang on," he says, standing up from the counter to go shout up the stairs at Morty again. 

Alone with the stranger for a moment, Beth quickly turns to Five. "Has he ever talked to you about me?" she asks, sounding extremely hopeful.  
  
The immediate hope in Beth's voice is enough to punch Five straight in his chest, and he glances at the entry where Rick had gone for a second, as if making sure the man wasn't going to come back. It was mostly to buy himself time because, in truth? He hadn't. He knew Rick had a daughter-- that much had come up in their agonizing talks about family. He knew Rick's parents were about as fucked as his own, that his family was the most important thing in the world to him.

"Not specifics," He admits. "From what he's told me, you're better than you sell yourself. He wishes he could have provided for you," Five hesitates, going quiet as he squints at the label on his beer. "I do know you're the most important thing in the world to him," He says, voice soft, "We have that in common. Family first." He offers her a tight smile, taking a long drink afterward.

It was mostly bullshit, but it was bullshit using context clues, of which he was 95% sure of. He recognized daddy issues when he saw them.  
  
Beth looks like Five roundhouse kicked her in the chest with that particular piece of information, her hand going to her heart as her eyes go shiny. "Seriously? He told you that?" her voice comes out in a pitiful little squeak. 

Rick reappears a moment later, trailing off. "Alright, Morty's on his-- Five, did you make my daughter cry? I leave for two minutes--"

"No, no, it's just the onions," she says, lifting her apron to dab at her eyes. "I'll be right back. I love you dad," she stands up on her tip toes to give him a kiss on the cheek and scurries out of the room to collect her composure, as Rick squints suspiciously at Five. Whether fortunate or unfortunate, he wouldn't have time to confront Five about whatever the hell just happened, because the sound of Morty's footsteps behind him herald the approach of the boy.  
  
Five raises his eyebrows and gives Rick and smiles, no less smartassy than ever, "Onions," He says with an exaggerated scoff. Rick knows it wasn't the goddamn onions. Five does too. But any fall out over what he said seemed to only be positives. Seemed like Rick hadn't been the best dad-- well, who was Five to judge? Knowing him, he would have had about all the emotional wherewithal to fill a small spoon. Not exactly the best environment for a little girl.

Trotting around the corner, Morty tugs at the hem of his shirt, laughing a little breathlessly as he speaks, "H-Hey, sorry, I was just upstairs taaaaAH!" His feet stop then active trip over themselves as Five turns around and Morty sees who it is for the first time that day.

"RICK WHAT IS THIS GUY DOING HERE, ARE YOU CRAZY YOU BROUGHT HIM INTO OUR HOUSE?" Morty half-yelps before ducking back behind the wall. 

Five pulls a grimace, taking a drink of his beer, "Nice to see you're doing well, too, Morty," He drawls amicably, his grimace turning into his signature tight-laced smile, "Rick was just about to show me where you sleep." Alright-- He was _supposed_ to be civil, he knew, but Morty and him had technically already met, and he couldn't stop himself from giving just a little bit of shit.

"RiiIICK???" Morty yelps at Rick, eyes wide.  
  
Rick smacks Five in the back of the head for his joke, despite the fact that it made him laugh. "Relax, Morty. This guy's fine, the last time we met was a misunderstanding. His name's Five-- Five, this is Morty, my greatest disappointment."  
  
Five ducks to avoid the hit, flashing Rick a sideways grin before turning back to the panicking boy-- though it seemed like his grandpa's words did have some effect, as he slouches considerably against the wall, peeking out slightly more. "Y-You tried to shoot me in the face," Morty daggers at Five, who looks nonplussed with the accusation.

"If I'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead," Five says easily, taking a drink. "We're friends now. Never better."

"What, s-seriously, Rick? You made _friends_ with this guy?" Morty sounds distraught, gesturing to Five, who looks at Rick curiously.  
  
"Yeah, so what? You made friends with a sentient fart that wanted to annihilate the human race, Morty, you're not better," Rick says as he tips back and finishes off his beer, giving a loud belch and tossing it in the recycling bin. "And if I'm remembering correctly, rescuing this friend of yours killed a couple hundred people in the process. Swing and a miss Morty, wanna try again?"  
  
"It was my birthday!" He protests, stepping further out from his wall-shield, hesitatingly going to Rick's side, even if that was where the bulk of the hostility came from. At least Rick wouldn't actively shoot him between the eyes. "H-How'd you guys get close, anyway?"

"We talked. Talking is what adults do when they want to solve problems," Five answers, condescendingly patient, enough to make Morty's cheeks burn red and his ears feel like they were on fire. Five tries not to look too pleased with himself.

Morty looks unconvinced, "An-And what, you're now _besties_ or something? N-No way-- I don't like it, Rick, what if he's still working for them, or--"

Five's bottle hits the counter with a surprisingly sharp ring after he empties it, cutting Morty off before he could even finish, "I'd rather peel off my own skin with a potato peeler," Five says icily, "Work is work. I'm here for pleasure." He says, and has to intentionally not look at Rick with that sentence, not daring to give too much away.  
  
"He _is_ still working for them, Morty," Rick says, sounding annoyed with the fact that Morty doesn't inherently have information he hasn't given him. "They're his _employers_. He's a contract killer, and I was one of his contracts. Sixteen times in total, wasn't it?" he takes his seat beside Five again. "Eventually they gave up when I kept mysteriously getting away."  
  
"Turns out, your grandpa's hard to kill," Five agrees, and under the bar nudges Rick with his knee. It was a bit much to give him a wholesome, playful clap on the shoulder. Felt a bit overt for his taste. "Somehow, he keeps coming back."

Morty looks at them two, aghast at their closeness, " _Sixteen_ times?!" He yelps.

"21 times if you count the micro-missions. But those were supposed to be me following leads, not killing him." Five glances into the living room to make sure Summer hadn't heard. That would be bad, probably. 

Morty whips back to look at Five, "That doesn't make it better!" He half-barks, clearly distressed. "That's worse! C- Considerably worse!"  
  
"What's a little attempted murder between friends?" Rick shrugs his shoulders with a catlike, smug little smirk. Making Morty squirm is his favorite pastime, after all. "You and I have both tried to kill each other at least once. It's part of the bonding process, Morty. You can't really be good friends with someone until you've had a brush with death together. What are you, an idiot? Everyone knows that. Birdperson, Squanchy, Stan, Mr. PBH, what's the one thing I've had in common with all of them? Death-defying feats of heroism and bravery."  
  
"We just stop at the death-defying," Five supplies unhelpfully beside Rick. 

Morty glances between the two of them tugging at his shirt. He still looked obviously hesitant to believe the strange man, but also obviously unable to think of another argument against him. Morty had only met him once, though, so his width of knowledge was pretty low. Maybe Rick really didn just attract people from the wrong crowd. "...O-Okay, okay--fine, but-- I'm watching you..." He says suspiciously, eyes narrowing.

"Let me know when you get bored. I can change the channel," He offers with a nod, looking over at Rick-- The conversation had gone about as well as he could expect. Not too bad.  
  
By the time Beth returns, she has fresh makeup on, and they make pleasant conversation throughout the rest of the process of her making dinner. Morty seems uneasy the whole time, but slightly relaxes the longer Five goes without assaulting anyone in his family. Summer flits in and out of the kitchen, joining the conversation here and there, but mostly just eavesdropping from the living room as Beth makes her 'stretchy potatoes' which Rick praises endlessly. Beth is practically glowing through the entire process of making dinner, asking conversational questions about Five's work and whether he has any family-- though she quickly picks up on the fact that family is a sore subject for him and keeps her questions light and noninvasive. 

The table is set with Morty's help, and at long last the final member of the family comes slinking out of the hallway underneath the front stairs-- an extremely average looking man who can only be Jerry, given the way Beth's entire mood shifts from cheerful to barely tolerant upon his arrival at the dinner table. 

"Who's this?" he asks as he takes a seat at the other head of the table opposite Rick, as Summer fetches a spare chair for Five to sit to his left. 

"Jerry, this is Five, the coolest person besides me you'll ever have the privilege of sharing a dinner table with," Rick says as Beth starts to cut and serve the meat loaf. "Five, this is Jerry, the only person in the world more disappointing than Morty."  
  
" _Five?"_ Jerry repeats with a low, dry chuckle as the older man takes his seat with a polite nod to Summer for her effort, "Like the number? Where's Six, at home with the kids?" He leans over the corner of the table to nudge Summer as he hands her the potatoes after serving himself. He's clearly very pleased with his joke.

"Six was my brother, and he died four days before his seventeenth birthday," Five answers evenly as he pours himself a glass of his gift wine, then hands the bottle to Rick, looking up with a cool gaze, "I don't have any kids."

Jerry looks like he'd been hit, embarrassment making his eyebrows furrow, "Oh, uh--"

"Please, Beth, have some wine," Five speaks over Jerry when he notice her turn it down, "Your father and I don't need the entire thing to ourselves, and the price says it should be good." Whereas his smile to Jerry had been virtually nonexistent, he's warm to Beth. But then again, she hadn't met him by going _who's this_ like he was vermin, so.  
  
"Oh, alright," Beth gives an indulgent giggle as she pours herself a glass. 

"Can I have some?" Summer asks. "I'm closer to 21 than I'm not."

"Solid reasoning," Rick agrees and pours a generous glass for her as well. Nobody offers any to Jerry. 

"So, you're, uh... friend of Rick's?" Jerry says, desperately trying to make conversation. "I know you're not coworkers, because Rick doesn't have a job."

"Sure, Jerry. I provide for this family by selling technology all across the multiverse and rake in six figures on a good month, but because I don't have a boss and a cubicle, I don't have a job," Rick says as he cuts his meatloaf with a disaffected expression. "Tell me again how you know what it's like to not have a job?"

Jerry, who is practiced at deflecting Rick's judgements and attacks, instead continues on. "I'm just saying," he laughs. "How do two adult men meet other than at work?"

"Dad, just because _you_ don't have any hobbies that let you meet friends doesn't mean Grandpa Rick doesn't," Summer says, sipping the wine. She doesn't seem to like it very much, but she's at the age where booze is booze, so she drinks it regardless.  
  
"My work means our paths would cross often," Five says easily, taking a drink of his own wine and glancing reproachfully at the glass. Oh, it as strong. A weary look at Summer was followed with a mental note to keep an eye on the girl. He could probably switch out her glass with cranberry juice before the family noticed if she ended up getting a little too taken by the drink.

Morty looks uneasy, looking between his dad and Five, only barely picking at his food. He hadn't asked to have wine, not that he would have gotten any even if he had. Things don't work out in his favor like that. "They've been friends for a while," He says, to try and deflect some of the heat.

"1,436 years now, to be exact," Five smiles without humor over at Jerry, "Lots of time to get to know one another. How do _you_ meet people? 3 years of unemployment must make you lonely," He takes a bite of his meatloaf and hums deep in his chest, a self-satisfied cat, "Beth, you didn't talk this up enough. Really fantastic, sweetheart."   
  
Beth gives an absolutely charmed little giggle, as Jerry's face flushes with irritation, and Rick looks more and more smug by the second. "I have friends," Jerry says, despite that not being the question that was asked. 

"Jerry plays fortnite," Rick interjects. 

"They're nice people, Rick!" Jerry insists. "I didn't invite all this hostility, I just wanted to know how you met. Since you know, you look like a respectable man. You've got a suit and a mustache, and Rick's just about the least respectable man I've ever met."

"Are you the authority on what's respectable, Jerry? You wear collared tee shirts," Rick says without looking up. 

"They're _comfortable_ , Rick. At least I don't wear a lab coat all around town to let people know what a bigshot scientist inventor I am, because _I've_ got a little something called self-respect and don't need the validation of strangers to function like you do," Jerry continues, but Rick isn't even paying attention to him anymore. He gives Five a little sidelong smirk as if to say ' _yes he's always like this, yes it's always this entertaining._ ' 

"Alright, that's enough Jerry," Beth says coldly, despite the fact that Rick seems absolutely nonplussed by Jerry's attempts to assassinate his character.  
  
Five wonders just what Rick's family does and doesn't know, if news that their relationship was almost two-thousand years old didn't warrant so much as a second glance. He had to wonder what else they would take without batting an eye. Giving Jerry some shit was reminding him ever more of home, the shit he'd give his brothers, and their absolute inability to return the favor. The key difference being that at least the Hargreeves seemed to like one another a little bit, deep down. This seemed to be hostility all the way through, and Five couldn't entirely blame him. Unemployed, at his age? With a family to care for? He couldn't imagine being so ineffectual, but he was also aware that some people did love their complacency.

"I was hired to kill him, if you must know," Five admits, taking a bite of his potatoes. Morty's eyes go wide and his back goes ramrod straight, looking from his parents to Five like the other shoe was sure to drop. Five still doesn't speak with any sort of malice. "We found common ground, then continued finding it," He gives Rick a look, lips twitching into a similar smirk. 

Taking a drink of his wine, Five tilts his head at Jerry, "You didn't really answer my question, Jerry. Tell me, what _does_ an unemployed man in 2020 do for three years?" He holds a hand up, "Fortnite excluded, of course." He adds, as if it was a favor.  
  
"KILL him? And you failed?" Jerry sounds almost disappointed, and completely ignores Five's pointed question. "Rick who did you piss off enough that they tried to have you killed?"

"I piss off plenty of people enough for them to want me dead, Jerry, you should try it sometime," Rick says as he butters a dinner roll and takes a bite, talking with his mouth full. "Living life on the edge is why I'm still svelte at 71 and you've got a muffin top at 35."  
  
"How did you and Beth meet? Surely she had standards at some point," Five asks curiously, "No offense Beth," He says. Looking down at his plate, he realized he'd eaten his entire helping in record time. It really _was_ good-- Rick wasn't exaggerating. And while he had laid the compliments on a little thick to prove a point, it wasn't unfounded. Reminded him of Mom, in the best way.  
  
"We were high school sweet hearts," Jerry answers. 

"That's a strong word," Beth mutters, and before Jerry can splutter his way through another weak defense, she continues. "Another boy knocked me up when I was 17 and ditched, and Jerry offered to pick up the slack, and I settled."

"You don't have to say it like _that_ ," Jerry wilts, and Rick laughs. Even Summer snickers a little bit.

"We can't all be winners," Rick says, taking the last bite of his own meatloaf and pointing his fork across the table. "Look on the bright side, Jerry. People like Five and I who've got it all-- good looks, a good work ethic, money, fame and amazing sex lives, we're the minority. You're a regular part of the herd, absolutely average in every way. That's great for you."

"I didn't need to know about his sex life," Jerry mutters. 

"Well you were bound to find out one way or another cause I plan on bringing him home more often," Rick says, all but flat out admitting to his family that he and Five are lovers-- and that does get a reaction from the table. 

"Oh! I didn't know," Beth says, looking between the two of them. "Dad, look at you! Dating someone your own age for once. I'm happy for you." 

"Hah, that makes it so weird that I called you daddy, sorry," Summer chuckles as she types something into her phone. But Jerry's the one who seems the most shocked. 

"I... didn't realize you were... like that," he clears his throat. 

"Jerry, if this is how you're finding out I'm not heterosexual, you haven't been paying attention," he says, standing up from the table to start collecting empty plates, and he gives Beth a kiss on the head, while pointedly not looking at Morty. "Dinner was great, sweetie."  
  
He extracts himself from the dining room by using dirty plates as an excuse despite never being one for washing dishes, just to get his family's eyes off him as his heart threatens to pound out of his chest. It's not like this is the first time his family has ever been aware that he's had a relationship with someone-- far far from it, in fact. But this is the first time he's admitted to being in a relationship with someone he _loves_ this much. Barring Unity, but that hadn't exactly been his choice. He turns the sink water on too hot and sticks his hands under it just to feel something other than the relentless aching of his heart. There's no going back, no taking anything back. When was the last time he was a part of something so real?  
  
Five tilts his head curiously as he watches Rick's retreating back, his face an unreadable mask of consideration as his mind whirs into place. He'd come under the impression that this was a cursory meeting, a quaint dinner with a friend to meet his family and open up a little more. That admission, followed by the reaction from his family, made Five's body clench hotly, deep in his gut. Had he just been introduced to a family? Like a boy being brought home before prom, given a shovel talk and told not to hurt someone?

When Rick leaves, it's Five who's left with the burden of their gazes-- Including Morty's, who looks absolutely aghast, absolutely no poker face at all. He looks stunned beyond words, incredulous and maybe even a trite bit offended. Five couldn't demean the kid. They hadn't exactly gotten along.

"I think that's my cue," Five says, plucking up their glasses, as well as taking the still partially-full bottle from the table, "If you'll excuse me. Jerry, tell them a story or something. We'll be right back." He excuses himself on behalf of the family, and he pretends like he doesn't take such delight in making Jerry sputter and scoff like he'd never been told what to do by an older man before.

Five teleports once out of eyeline of anyone but Morty, going from the door to Rick's side with only the faintest tickle of static humming between them, "Thought you might like the rest," Five says, setting the bottle down beside his partner, watching the scarlet skin of his fingers and leaning forward when he has the chance to turn the water off altogether, calloused fingers smoothing over his own as he brings them back to Rick's waist. "Come on. That didn't go so bad," Five mutters, voice a quiet rumble. "What's going on?"  
  
Rick silently dries his hands off on a towel, and then turns around to stoop down and wrap his arms around Five's shoulders. It's a risk, a massive one with his family right around the corner, allowing himself to be so vulnerable-- but in that moment what he needs more than anything is to be physically close to Five. To reassure himself that this is real, that Five is still here. 

There are few people in his life who he cares about enough that losing them would kill him. Fewer people still who he cares about so much that he would openly tell his family he's in a relationship with them, were one to start. Birdperson and Stan are the only other two who come to mind-- but BP is aromantic, and Stan has and always has had Ford, which makes Rick second fiddle. He gets it, he's not upset about that. This is the first time he can remember that he's had someone achieve the same level of closeness as those two who he could actually have. Five is _his_.

"Nothing," he finally mutters, hiding his face in Five's shoulder. "I've just never done that before."  
  
Five isn't one for graphic displays of affection, particularly not where it's almost guaranteed people would see-- and with the family just around the corner quietly bickering over who chased them off, that was a very real threat-- but he could see the little crease in Rick's brow, the frown on his lips. Five didn't mind breaking his own rules for the greater good, and this seemed pretty cut and dry 'greater' than anything he cared about. Especially a family that wasn't even his own.

"Glad to hear you don't make a habit of bringing assassins home. I might get jealous," Five teases adoringly, arms raising after just a moment to slide around Rick's narrow waist. He can almost wrap himself around the other man twice he was so narrow, like Five could break him in half if he squeezed too hard-- and Five wasn't even the strong one in the family. He could only imagine the kind of damage Luther could do.

Leaning down, Five tries to make Rick look at him, nudging him with his shoulder in encouragement, "Hey, I had fun, alright? Even Jerry's fun when you get why he's there." Five smiles, and it actually reaches his eyes, those few rare moments where Rick gets a glimpse of his dimples and his eyes crinkle, "I'm not going anywhere. And it doesn't seem like they are, either. You got through it."  
  
Rick cups Five's face in both hands and gives him a firm kiss on the mouth, relishing in the tickle of his mustache and the comfort of his presence, though his fingers burn on his cheeks from the scalding the water had done to his fingers. He would have been content to bask there in the simple touch, but the sound of a squawk cuts him off and he stands up and drops his hands in time to see Morty, agonized in the doorway. 

"Jesus christ Rick, _really??"_ is all he says, before turning around and bolting from the room. 

Rick just sighs and shakes his head but otherwise doesn't react, turning instead to smooth the collar of Five's jacket down. "I want ice cream. You want ice cream?"  
  
"Do you need to take care of that?" Five asks, glancing over their shoulders to where the kid had just stood, aghast and dismayed, as if the image of him kissing his grandfather was the worst thing to ever behold. His hands don't leave Rick's waist, though, his thumbs smoothing across his clothed hips. "If you need to give a 'Birds and the Bees' talk, it should probably come from you before he has a chance to look that shit up online." He's mostly joking, really.  
  
"I'll deal with him later," Rick answers, draping his arms around Five's neck loosely. "For now, I just want ice cream."

Five joins the family in the living room for after-dinner TV and ice cream, in which the conversation is much lighter and less aggressive because the odd multiverse programming is there to keep them halfway occupied. Five has never been much of a TV watcher, but this is clearly something of a family ritual whenever Rick is home, although Jerry sits apart from them in an armchair and Summer and Morty sit on the floor. Summer just texts the whole time, while Morty seems lost in thought, rarely engaging in the conversation even if he's directly addressed. 

As everyone begins to depart for bed, Five gets the impression that while there are clearly some issues between them, they're a loving family. Well, maybe with the exception of Jerry and Rick-- but truly, Five's able to see how deeply Rick loves the rest of his family. 

"We don't have to stay here," Rick says when he and Five are the only ones left in the living room-- though they both know for a fact that Morty is nearby eavesdropping. He's not nearly as sneaky as he thinks he is. "Probably should head back to the hotel room. My room's just got a military cot. Not comfortable for two people."  
  
Unfortunately for Morty, Five has never taken pity on kids. He knows better than anyone just what a kid his age can handle. Hell, he _was_ a kid Morty's age in some sense still, seeing as he'd never had the chance to develop socially past his early teens, and even beyond that he remembers every year in excruciating detail. While it was clear there was some unresolved _something_ hanging in the air between Rick and his grandson, it wasn't Five's place to press he sort it out. And frankly? His time was limited. 

"That's disappointing," Five admits, but doesn't sound like it, "Here I'd thought you'd warned your family of our prowess as a warning for after dinner." He can hear the wood floor creak as Morty either takes a step back or readjusts himself. Sloppy. Five doesn't care. Curling an arm around Rick's waist, Five leans up to press a lingering kiss to his jaw and throat, teeth scraping where his lips had been laid.

Humming, Five watches Rick through heavy-lidded eyes, nodding to the open space in front of him, finally, "By all means, lead the way. I've yet to figure out multidimensional travel on my own. Until then, the ride's on you," Five says, two of his fingers hooking in Rick's waistband even as Five's arm is slung low around his hips.  
  
"You got it," Rick stands up and pulls out his portal gun, shooting it into the wall. "After you."

The telltale sound of someone going through the portal can be heard, at which point Morty quickly makes his move before Rick has a chance to follow, coming quickly around the corner. Rick hears his feet and turns to look back over his shoulder at him, and sighs. He could just climb through the portal and leave him there to stew in his anger. He could easily just ditch him, it's not like Morty could follow even with a second portal gun, he wouldn't know where to go. 

But he also knows from experience that just leaving things to stew with Morty almost always makes them worse. He also knows that Five gets the sense that there's jealousy there, so if he doesn't come through immediately, the man won't panic and tear apart the universe trying to get back to him. Five can hear him sigh through the open portal before it closes-- he'll know to wait patiently for Rick to arrive. 

Turning to face Morty, he crosses his arms with a sharp, clipped, "What."  
  
"You're _dating_ that guy?" Morty asks, his voice breaking as soon as the portal closes. 

He looks upset. _Hurt_. It feels like a betrayal, and maybe it was in a lot of ways. Morty had noticed Rick spending more time out without him, his adventures skewing more and more solo as the days had gone by. Usually he couldn't go a day without being pulled out of school by his grandpa, now he was going on almost three, five at the longest. His attendance had gone back up. His teachers were pleased, maybe, but Morty wasn't. There was a reason he'd enjoyed going out with Rick in the first place.

Queasiness settles in his stomach like a sickness, and he looks at where the portal was, rubbing his arm and curling it protectively around his gut, to fend off a blow that hadn't come. "And you're going _back_ with him, too?" He sounds even more sad at that, if it were possible, voice breaking, "H-He tried to kill us, Rick."  
  
"A lot of people try to kill us, Morty, that doesn't make him special," Rick says flatly. "Last I checked I didn't need your _permission_ to date someone, Morty. Do you have something to say Morty? Are you really gonna be a jealous little bitch in the living room while your parents are upstairs, _Morty?"_  
  
Morty looks hurt as his mouth twists unpleasantly, like any words he might have said would be proving Rick right and he has to chew them before he can swallow, "I-I-I didn't know you were dating," Morty tries instead, diverting and sounding unsure of himself for the effort. His face is still set in a stern frown, still clearly upset even if his words aren't coming out quite as strongly as he intended.

"Since when do you even date, huh? A-And especially just some-- some guy like that, y'know, you bring him home to meet the family, i-it's like you're-- you're serious about him or something. You... You don't gotta bring every guy you're having sex with home, y'know?"  
  
"Maybe I _am_ serious about him, Morty," Rick says defensively. "Maybe I'm more serious about him than I have been about anyone since your grandma, why don't you chew on _that one_ , Morty? Or maybe I barely even know him and I paid him exactly $4,150 to pretend to be my fucking boyfriend for a family dinner just to _mindfuck_ my family because nothing else in my life inspires joy anymore, _including_ you. You wouldn't even be able to tell the fucking difference because you're six-fucking-teen Morty, you wouldn't know what genuine affection looks like if it sat in your lap and _farted_. But tell me again your wisdom O Wise fucking Sage, tell me more about how much you know about who I should and shouldn't date."  
  
Morty bristles, gritting his teeth against the onslaught he can't even properly retort to, trying not to look hurt and knowing damn well that he does anyway. He always does, despite his best effort, and Morty's little hands curl into equally as little fists of frustration as he glares up at the older man. "No way, _no way_ , Rick, that's not like you," He says, putting his foot down. "So... so what, you meet this guy, he tries to blow your brains out -- wh-what, sixteen times? Tries to blow MY brains out, too, y'know-- and now you're _dating_ and you're bringing him home to the family and you're-- do you even know anything about this guy? How can you even think you can trust him when the only reason you know he exists AT ALL is because he was hired to KILL you??"  
  
"GEE Morty thanks for the glowing INSIGHT that maybe I should look into the guy who tried to kill me! What a fucking revelation, _thank you_ , Morty! I never would have thought-- it never would have fucking _occurred_ to me to find out who he was! Gosh, you're so right, I'll go back and break it off with him right away, I can always count on YOU to look out for me," Rick patronizes.  
  
"Well JESUS, Rick, what-what do you expect me to think, huh? You come in here, you-- you don't give anything-- you're still saying his name is FIVE for fuck's sake, what am I supposed to believe, huh? You did all this research and you still don't have a name? What's this to PROVE, anyway-- what-- is it _me_?" Morty takes a simperingly sad step forward, trying to grab at his jacket, his hand, "I get it, okay? I'll-I'll listen to you more, is that what you want? I can do that--"  
  
Rick slaps his hand away. " _Jesus_ Morty, not everything is about you." he snaps, taking a step back. "I call him Five because that's his fucking name. You know for all you bitch and moan about how hard your life is here with two stable parents in a house you've lived in your whole life with a school system that has been WAY more forgiving than you deserve, Five grew up in a family where he and his siblings were given _numbers_ because that's how little of a shit his parents gave. You wouldn't have the first _fucking_ idea about what real, lifelong suffering is."  
  
"Is that it? You think he gets _suffering_ more?" Morty's face is screwed up in a petulant frown, his body tight with hurt and frustration, "Why's that even matter, Rick, I've been here since you _got_ here! I showed up when no one else would for you! I've stood up for you, I've-I've given up everything for you!" He says, standing in his family's living room, in his own clothes, in his own home, probably paid for by Rick. "So-So what, he's had it bad. We've all had it bad! It's all BAD out there, Rick, aren't you the one that taught me that? To- to compare who has it worse is just like shitting in the wind, it all comes back in the end."  
  
Rick just shakes his head. "You don't get it. It's not your fault you were born painfully average. There's people who'd eviscerate themselves with a pair of chopsticks to have a life like you've had. The point is I actually _give a shit_ about him and he gives a shit about _me_ , and I don't need your _permission_ to see whoever I wanna see. Unwrap your selfish little mind from around your dick for one second and get it straight that you don't _own me_ , Morty. You don't own any _part_ of me. We've not dating, we're not _together_ , you're an entitled fucking child with no perspective and I'm allowed to be in--" he breaks off, coughing as his voice escalates a little too roughly, and just in time, too. He shouldn't admit that to Morty. "To be involved with whoever the fuck I want," he finishes angrily.  
  
Morty looks hurt, stricken by Rick's words and wounded by them in equal measure, "We might not be dating but it's not-- you can't act like this isn't anything, Rick!" He snaps, head yanking up to look Rick stubbornly in the eye. "Maybe I'm just a kid, and- and maybe I don't get it because I'm not some-- WHATEVER _space assassin_. Maybe I am average! But it's not like I made up what we have between us and you're not going to convince me otherwise! If- if the only thing you can say is that this guy knows what it's like to have a shitty life, then why don't you go out and date every other sad asshole in the multiverse, huh? Is that all it takes with you? A sad story? That-that's real pathetic, you know? Just 'cause someone has a shit life, that doesn't make them someone worth your time, especially not when you have someone who's PROVEN to give a crap about you right here!"  
  
Morty hits the ground before he even registers the backhand to his face, it strikes him so hard. The pain blooms out from his jaw down his neck and up into his brain, throbbing and agonizing. Rick looms over him like a fucking menace, blotting out the lamp light behind him and casting a dark shadow over his frame. 

"You got no _fucking idea_ what Five and I have been through, you little worm," he snarls, his foot nearly coming down on Morty's hand. "Stay in your _fucking_ lane."  
  
Morty grabs his face, betrayal evident in the twitching crease in his brow, "Why, huh? So- so you can run off with this guy and make me track you down in a week or two? You remember how well that worked with you and Unity, right? Not great!" He snaps, "Maybe you should stop giving a crap about people who make your life more MESSY, Rick, and just keep shit close to to home where we can actually GET you. Really you, not-- Not whatever asshole you act like you are across dimensions."  
  
"My GOD you are fucking dense!" Rick shouts down at him. "NOTHING you think you know about me is even _real!_ You're not even-- fuck this. Fuck this, and _fuck_ you, Morty, you selfish, narrow-minded-- _fuck you_."

He pulls the portal gun back out of his jacket and shoots it against the glass door behind him, the other end opening into Five's hotel room and affording him the tail end of Rick's argument as he shouts, "Next time you wanna be fucking JEALOUS about a relationship between adults, talk to a fucking _therapist_. And next time you wanna say shit about Five-- _choke it down_ because if I hear one more sideways word out of you about him I'll break you over my fucking knee." 

He steps through the portal, leaving Morty behind lying on the living room floor and immediately sets into pacing Five's hotel room muttering to himself, "Stupid, stupid, fucking _stupid_ \--"  
  
Five was apparently helping himself to a nightcap, a bottle of very good Whiskey sitting on the small motel room table between two glasses-- one already poured, one held loosely in his hand. The portal opening had drawn his attention, and the words spat like fire had kept it, making Five squint as he listens intently for any argument-- but the portal closes behind Rick before any can be made, leaving them alone in the room, and Rick pacing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of an awkward place to cut, but this chapter was already crazy long and the tail end of this one is nothing but smut, so i'll be posting that separately


	6. Chapter 6

Five's tie was loose, his blazer draped over the chair behind him. Five's sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and his hat had been hung over the knobby back. Standing, Five holds the glass out to him, an understanding look in his eye. "And that's the illustrious Sanchez clan," He says lightly, "Gotta say, I don't miss the arguments." But his tone is sympathetic. "Need to talk?"  
  
"I should have known better. I can't bring home anything I care about to those people," Rick is spitting fire when he grabs the glass and knocks it back in a few hard swallows, before turning and hurling the glass at the wall with all his might, shattering it to pieces that shower over the carpet and crunch under his boots as he resumes his pacing. "Jerry with his fucking _opinions_ and MORTY--"  
  
"Is a kid," Five reminds, taking a further step to block Rick's path of furious pacing. "Stop for a second," His tone is firm but not demanding, and he reaches out quickly to snag the hem of his lab coat, pulling him to face forward and glaring at him as he forces Rick to go still. "You didn't drag my ass across time and space to prove a point to _them_ , you went to show them to _me_. And I saw them. We had a nice dinner. If they're going to complain because suddenly you're happier, then who gives a shit?"  
  
 _"I_ give a shit--" Rick admits, startling even himself, and that knocks the wind out of him. He sits heavily on the side of the bed with a sigh, hanging his face in his hands. "I just wanted them to fucking care. Beth and Summer were fine-- they're always fine. They're the most competent people in the family after me, but I should have fucking known Morty would get all up in his feelings about it. Heaven _fucking_ forbid there's something in my life making me happy that isn't him."  
  
"He's a _kid_ ," Five reminds him again, standing in front of Rick, "And stupid, but that isn't his fault. Family always clenches when something they think is constant changes," He settles his hand in Rick's hair and pulls gently, urging his head out of his hands, "Let me guess, before me you... didn't exactly bring people home often," He says, without judgement. Like he was one to judge for a loner lifestyle. His entire life was a loner goddamn lifestyle. "They're confused. They don't get why you'd want something else. I think people think you can grow out of wanting to be happy." Frowning and shaking his head, Five's hands move to cradle his jaw, forcing Rick's head up when he continues to try and avoid looking at him. "Hey. They'll get used to it. They don't have a choice in the matter."  
  
It's too painful to admit that Morty's opinion was the one that mattered the most, and the one that hurt the worst. He couldn't muster a single shit to give for Jerry not liking Five, and it might have stuck in his craw for a minute or two if Beth or Summer hadn't liked him-- but Morty? It burns in his chest like a fucking knife that Morty didn't like Five. Not only that he didn't _like_ him, but he didn't even trust Rick enough to have good judgement about him. 

He reaches up to drag Five down to sit on his knees between Rick's legs, and he folds himself around the smaller man, tucking into his shoulder and winding his arms around his neck and waist. They _don't_ have a fucking choice in the matter, and it hurts his heart to hear Five say it out loud. To hear Five admit that he plans to stick around. Rick knows better than to take things for granted, every waking hour of his life since he realized what Five meant to him has been spent calculating how to prevent every possible death the other man could befall. Being in love _sucks_. 

"I wanted him to like you," is all he can manage to admit, in a rough voice. "Even if he didn't fucking like you I wanted it to matter to him that _I_ do."  
  
Five's heart hurts for Rick. He can't imagine how it must have been. To go so long without someone you could truly trust as an equal, to feel so isolated for so long-- and to finally find that person, only for them to be dismissed? Five wasn't stupid, there was something between Morty and Rick, and he couldn't begin to assume what it was-- but he'd brought Morty with him to the bar. Based on what Rick said so long ago he had to assume it was a constant throughout space and time: If there was a Rick, he had a Morty. That was no small thing. So then for Morty to be the very same person who had shut him down and denied him, that had to've been worse. 

His stomach twists, guiltily so. He should have been nicer, maybe. More welcoming. Shouldn't have tried to shoot the kid's head off just to prove a point. Maybe he'd been a little immature. He couldn't do anything about it other than hate and be embarrassed by himself, of such a rash choice that had clearly hurt Rick more than he could ever have known. 

"They don't _know_ me, Rick," He murmurs, "None of them know me. I'm not stupid, whatever you and Morty have-- it's important. To him and to you," Five says, warm against Rick's throat. "I think it'd be worse if he rolled over for that right away, wouldn't it? Don't you _want_ him to put up a little bit of a fight when he has to think about sharing his favorite person? I know I sure as shit would," Five's fingers gently comb through the hair at the back of his head. "And I have a feeling Morty and I have that in common. It's a compliment, if you really wanna think about it."

"I don't," Rick mumbles, even though Five's words settle hot in his stomach. For once he has someone in his life who says the right things. Who actually _puts out_ the fires in his chest instead of fanning the flames. It's still not something he's completely used to. He's used to fighting and fighting and fighting until one person or the other is too angry to talk anymore so they leave and do something stupid. For Five to actually know what to say to not just make him less angry but to make him feel _better_ is nothing short of a miracle. "I don't want to think at all," he mutters again, hiding his face in Five's neck. "The last couple times we've met up sucked, I just want something to go right."  
  
Another gentle rumble leaves his chest, a considering sound as Five lifts Rick's face to his and looks him in the eye, intention plain as day on his face, "Let me take care of you." It's a request, but not one made without some iron behind his words. Five doesn't sound like a man who didn't know what he wanted, and Five's fingers slip under Rick's jacket at his shoulders to push the lab coat off of his arms, freeing him of the fabric even as he sits up in Rick's lap, hands moving to Rick's hair, his jaw, tilting his chin up so he can kiss him gently on the mouth. " _Fuck_ the last couple of times," He mutters, then kisses him again, "Nothing else matters." And when he kisses Rick the final time, it certainly sounds like he means it.

When was the last time someone _took care_ of Rick? When was the last time he _let_ someone take care of him? The concept feels foreign in his chest to even think about. There's an instinctive part of him still that warns him to run, to hide from the potential vulnerability-- but that's stupid. Five is the only person in the world he could ever be this vulnerable with, on this level. Maybe it's high fucking time Rick Sanchez was taken care of, for once. 

"Yeah... shit, okay," he mumbles against Five's mouth, feeling a giddy twist in his stomach as he gives his consent. Knowing that at any second he could revoke it and that Five would comply gives him the courage to shut off his brain for once and just give himself to somebody. It's dizzying being able to trust another person on this level.

He shrugs his lab coat off and tosses it to the ground, meeting Five's mouth with energy this time, breathing hard through his nose. He just wants something to go right-- and things always go right when they fall into bed together. Or into Rick's ship... or against the wall somewhere... or over a bar-- really, anywhere they can get their hands on one another. 

No sooner does the agreement leave Rick's lips than Five surges forward. They stay connected at the mouth, Five's lips urgent and demanding, but his hands push Rick up the bed, crowding him back into the headboard and straddling his legs. They part only long enough for Five to pull Rick's shirt up and over his head, and as he throws the shirt aside to join Rick's jacket, his mouth has already returned. 

Teeth and tongue bruise Rick's lip as Five impatiently devours his mouth. His hands burn as they smooth down his bony shoulders, across the narrow plane of his arms and chest, and a thigh slips between Rick's legs to spread him open until he can fit between them. The kiss only breaks when both men are flushed with breathlessness, and only then does Five's mouth move to Rick's throat, his shoulder, where he begins to suck a bright purple bruise against his pale skin.

Rick's head feels hazy as he drops it back against the pillow, heat throbbing in his stomach. It feels almost wrong to just lay back and take it like this, only because of his practically unchallenged track record of being in Five's position. He's always been the type to seize control and maintain it effortlessly, to have it wrested away from his grasp and by his own consent no less-- he still has to fight the twitch of his muscles as they try to obey decades-old muscle memory and take command. 

Instead, he focuses on the sensations to distract himself. The cool, slightly plasticky texture of the motel bedcover against his back, the weight of Five on top of him, the tickle of his mustache against his skin. He breathes out through his mouth in a sigh, and reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp. The room is still illuminated by the pale fluorescent lights of the parking lot streaming in through the blinds over the window, but it makes it a little easier for Rick to let go if he can't clearly see his own body. 

The light is striped handsomely over Five's face, and Rick reaches up to grab his hat and throw it aside, un buttoning his suit coat and undoing his tie hastily. His fingers pluck apart the buttons of Five's shirt, eager to get his hands on his skin.

A rumble leaves Five's throat, almost boarding on disappointed if he didn't mind the electricity that shocks through his core at Rick's hands pulling his shirt apart, "I told you to relax," He rumbles, teeth nipping at his skin, sharp enough to pinch but not enough to break through to blood. Biting on such a flared looking bruise was certainly its own brand of cruelty, but he doesn't apologize for his actions.

He leans back, away from Rick's prying fingers, away from his hungry control. Five arches and sits on his heels to pull his tie properly off of his head, making no move to acknowledge the few buttons hanging open at his collar, exposing his chest and the scars that linger beneath. He takes his time with his tie, and only when he's finished does he lean forward. But instead of initiating a kiss, or a touch, Five scoops those incessant fingers in one hand and ties them in only three short gestures. It was silk, nothing Rick couldn't wiggle his way out of with minimal effort, but Five anchors Rick's hands above his head to the board above, and leans back again to admire his work-- Rick, spread below him, open wide.

Five smiles at the sight, "See if you can hold that," He teases warmly, and only then does he work on his shirt, plucking the buttons open but leaving it draped across his shoulders, greedy and hungry, leaning in to mouth wetly across Rick's collar and below, until his lips capture a nipple, and his teeth bite until it's hard.

"Really? Are we doing fifty shades? I'm not--" Rick starts, but cuts off with an almost nauseous groan of pleasure. It kicks him in the stomach full force, this neglected part of his anatomy absolutely singing with sensation to a truly embarrassing degree. What kind of a fucking teenager is he that he can get hard from _nipple play?_ And yet here he is, tenting the front of his slacks and gritting his teeth through trying to pretend he isn't getting hard from being tied up and licked like a school girl. 

He turns his head to the side to hide his face against his arm as much as he can, his face already burning. Objectively he knows he could get out of the tie, he wouldn't even have to do anything fancy to break free, it's just fucking silk. He could rip it with the strength in his own two human arms. Knowing that he could break out so easily is comforting, and so he doesn't. 

"You _motherfucker_ ," he grunts, breathing out through his nose like a bull. 

The thigh between Rick's legs raises, encouraged by the loose noise he pries from his chest. It's a gift when he settles it firm against the heavy bulge growing in Rick's slacks, grinding it up against him in reward. Five leads with his teeth, more biting than kissing a trail down his body, raking teeth against his ribs and counting them with his tongue. He bites at the soft spot just beneath, where the bone finishes and gives way to smooth, taut skin stretched over his bony frame. 

"Takes one to know one, Rick," Five happily croons over his skin, ghosting warm breath over the man's flesh before his teeth sink into the raised skin of his hip. He can't help but appreciate the trail of bright red marks he'd left in his journey down, a road map of adoration. His heart swells, his chest feels full, and he bites into Rick's hip hard enough to bruise, pulling away only when he can feel Rick's pulse against his tongue.

Five can see his teeth in Rick's skin, and can't help but find it so fitting, too. He dips his head further, the final stretch, to nose Rick's cock through the thick fabric of his slacks, dragging his tongue against the zipper and humming at the metallic zing of his fly. His breath his warm, his touch firm-- but never quite firm enough, stopped, agonizingly, by the barrier between them, as Five's hand settles on Rick's hip and holds him in place.

"You-- fuck-- _really?­"_ Rick tries and fails to arch up into Five's touch. In a straight up and down contest of strength, Five has him handily beat, and so he relents and sags back down into the mattress with an angry sigh. " _Teasing?_ Are we high schoolers?"

Despite the heat in his words, Rick's expression is almost pained. He can't even summon a memory of the last time someone _teased_ him like this. The last time he _let_ someone tease him. If anyone tried over the past many years he would have shut it down so fast it wouldn't even make a blip in his memory and reclaimed control of the situation. Enough control to be a fucking cocktease isn't something he's afforded many people in his lifetime. 

Five laughs, bright and warm against the throbbing curve of his dick, his lips curling into a smug smirk as he nuzzles against him through his pants, burying his face into his slacks and taking a deep breath, smelling salt and the musk of his cock, of the spot between his legs that smells so exquisitely like Rick. 

Lifting up, Five's hand slips between Rick's legs to palm flatly at his bulge, the heel of his palm grinding into his cock and feeling it jerk and twitch beneath his fingers, "I never had a childhood, Rick," Five croons, voice an oversweet drawl of anguish, melodramatic in every way, "Let me have this." His hand gives another long, hard grind into Rick's cock, as his fingers tug his belt free, then yank open the zipper-- releasing some of the pressure, even if it wasn't all of it. "Now shut up before I _shut you up_."

His words are punctuated by his hand leaving Rick's cock, replaced instead with the warm heat of his mouth, tongue lapping at him now in one long, flat stroke, and Rick's head hits the pillow with a grunt. His hands tighten into fists in the tie holding him, and his toes curl in his boots. It's not like this is even close to the first time someone has gone down on him, but being fucking _teased_ with it is making every nerve in his body tense up on high alert. 

"Fuck," he grits out, grinding his head back against the pillow, his cock twitching and trying to arch up out of the fly still containing him, pinning him down. He flattens his boots to the bed and arches his hips up encouragingly, impatient and hungry. "Get _on with it_ , Five--"

Pulling away, Five licks his lip. He hadn't yet bothered to try and excise Rick from his pants, content to lick the growing girth of him even as his cockhead twitches nearby, tucked under the cold vice of the zipper and given no room to breathe. "What'd I tell you about letting me work?" He chides, looking disappointed. He looks down Rick's body, raises his knee to grind against his dick and watches the ripple of pleasure go through him like he'd electrocuted the man. 

"You're lucky I love you," He chides, finally, and with two fingers hooks Rick's pants off his hips and down his thighs, pulling and yanking until they're loose around his ankles and Rick's cock can bob, glistening, out of the cloth. Five crowds into Rick's space again, curling over him as a hand goes to his cock, the other to his hip-- and Five, unable to be without too long, kisses Rick, his thumb dragging over the slit of his cock and milking him with a twist of his wrist.

Jesus, he just went and _said it_. The big one, the L word. Rick himself had avoided saying it out loud. It was too big a word, too bright and hot, confronting it directly was like squinting at the sun. It's fitting that Five would be the first to say it out loud, even though both of their home lives had been fucked to shit, Five at least had the foundation of love with his siblings. He had someone to teach him from an early age what affection could, should, and _does_ feel like in an at least semi-healthy way. 

He wants to say it back, but the words stick in his teeth, and then he swallows them back down along with Five's tongue when it pushes into his mouth. His arms strain at the tie again and he very nearly obeys his impulse control when it tells him to break it so he can wrap his arms around Five, and only sags back when he hears the first thread pop under the pressure, breathing hard through his nose and eating at Five's mouth. 

His cock leaks past Five's thumb, dribbling down his length and pooling against the base, soaking into his pale blue pubic hair. He jerks his hips up into the touch, desperately seeking more even though by now he knows Five is going to go at his own damn pace no matter how desperate Rick is. 

Whether it's pity or genuine, it's hard to tell. One minute Rick is tied, held together by his own iron will and manners, and the next Five is plucking the tie away from his wrist, tossing it aside and crowding Rick's space with him. He would say it freely, would continue to say it freely. Unlike Rick, he had loved, and the pesky little spot inside that had been lost to the Void was where he'd previously stored it. Now, feeling Rick spread under him, knowing just what the man needed and felt, how he wanted to be so close to someone? Yeah. Five loved him.

Hands released, Five pours himself back into kissing Rick. His tongue presses into his mouth, a moan mingling with the breathless, floaty sounds leaving Rick. His hand leaves Rick's cock to grab hungrily at his hips, fingers digging so hard they bruise spots against him as he draws Rick back, pulling him flush with the slacks still tight over his hips and giving a low, rutting grind as he pins Rick hard into his bed.

Sinewy arms raise and wrap around Five's neck, bony fingers digging into his short hair, and he kicks his slacks and boots off to the ground, freeing his ankles to coil lazily around Five's thighs like a snake. He keeps one hand firmly rooted in Five's silver hair, and spreads the other across Five's chest, dragging through the hair there down the hard plane of his belly and down to his belt, which he impatiently tugs open. 

The pressure of him laying between Rick's legs makes him feel fuzzy, and it hits him all at once that he's completely naked under the other man. He's almost never totally naked unless he's humiliating himself in some way-- but during _sex?_ The vulnerability is unthinkable. He's sensing a theme to being with Five. 

Five smiles against Rick's lips, indulgently and affectionately. Like this, here, he's not nearly as guarded. When was the last time he got to take care of someone like this? To show them affection and adoration, as openly and deeply as he felt it? Their fucks were usually a fight, Five and Rick biting and snapping, tooth and nail for dominance. Dominance which, so far, Five had let Rick win. It was important to him, that dominance, and Five could recognize that in someone else as much as he could recognize it in himself. But he was happy here, with Rick curled around him like his favorite robe, warm and pliant.

"Stay," He murmurs once against Rick's lips, and he's gone without another word, returned before Rick can even get a syllable out in complaint-- although the cool air that had rushed to fill his void was still icy, compared to the broad, warm man within his arms again. There's a quiet popping of a lid, and Five's hands shift to smooth down Rick's thighs, curling around the soft, delicate skin and handling it with care, as if he was afraid to move too fast and break the scrawny man beneath him.

A series of peppered kisses are laid across Rick's mouth, one right after another, lips shifting from mouth to nose to cheek, then down his jaw and neck. His hand dips down, still untouched by lube, to smooth against Rick's hole, not entering, just pressing against that ring of muscle, adding pressure to the steady grind of his knee into Rick's cock.

Rick inhales sharply through his nose and twitches up onto one elbow, instinct telling him to back away from the pleasure, but that instinct only takes control of his muscles for a second before he relaxes them again. He remains propped up on his elbow, and lets his head fall back against his shoulder with a grunt, reaching down with his other hand to grab and lift his balls, soft with age, to hold them out of the way. 

"Fucking... _shit_ ," he grits out between tightly clenched teeth, his hole pinching and fluttering under the pressure of that dry finger. He doesn't even play with his own ass, totally unaccustomed to this kind of pleasure, and it shows. While he normally has a feral sort of control over his pleasure, he's unwieldy now, unfocused and unproductive in his movements. Twitchy, pulled taut and rigid. 

Dropping flat to his back again when the muscles of his shoulder give up, he groans and arches his hips up with a disgruntled, sarcastic, "I'm gonna die of old age before you get on with it--"

Five ducks his head to put teeth to nipple, and he cuts Rick off with a rather mean bite, the bud sensitive and his teeth hard, only stopping once he hears a sharp bark out of the man above him. He leans back then, shifting forward. With a languid roll of his hips, Five grinds the heavy bulge of his pants against Rick's leaking cock, smearing pre across his lower stomach and pinning him in place.

He watches Rick through heavy-lidded eyes, his hips snapping forward as he squeezes a healthy dollop of lube onto his fingers, "I can't expect you to understand, Rick, you're so young," He teases dismissively, strong thighs keeping Rick pinned in place as his heavy body continues to rut into Rick, gritting fabric against sensitive, engorged skin. His fingers warm the oil between his fingers. "One day you'll learn to appreciate foreplay," His words are a purr as he leans forward to drape himself over the man's torso, his mouth biting at his jaw, "Until then, just fucking breathe."

And he presses two fingers into Rick without waiting, without warning, pushing past the tight ring without building up to it first, grinding in until he feels himself seated to the final knuckle.

"I'm _fifteen_ years older than youuuughh--" his complaint is cut off by the intense pressure of Five's fingers entering him, and all at once Rick is gutpunched by familiarity. While he might not let people touch him like this, or even touch _himself_ like this, he has used his own body cavities for smuggling various obejcts in and out of certain dimensions. He hasn't done it for a while-- hasn't had to ever since Morty started adventuring with him and took over _that_ little job-- but his body is familiar with the process and knows what to do. 

His groan is throaty and guttural, and he reaches up to grind the heel of his hand against his forehead as he arches his hips up with an almost _angry_ snarl of pleasure. There's a part of him that's angry, but his emotions are layered and complicated. He's angry with himself for never letting himself be vulnerable to the point that this feels like something he has to _fight_ to enjoy on an instinctive level, and he's angry at the people in his life who have made him so guarded that he has the instinct in the first place. 

What he's _not_ angry at, though, is Five. He opens his eyes to glower down at the other man and his chest feels full, and his head tips back with another, louder moan when those fingers dig deeper into him. His muscles soften remarkably fast for a man who claims to not take this side very often, and his skinny chest heaves with his deep, ragged breaths.

Five's eyes are sharp on Rick's face. He catches that glare, but more than that, he catches the desperate look in his eye. Rick isn't soft. Five knows that. Until recently, Five would say he'd forgotten how to be, too-- but in this moment, he has to wonder how long Rick had truly felt his isolation. Five's had been a lifetime, but with Rick's protocols upon protocols, inventions and innovations, how long had Rick been living this lone existence? 

"Hey," He says softly, imploringly. Raising on his elbow, Five leans up to Rick's eye level, balancing himself even as those fingers begin to work him open, systematically twisting and grinding against his walls, the muscle parting and softening in no time at all. Experienced, if reluctant. His hand is unrelenting, and his voice is warm, "You're good. You're good," He comforts, falling into the role so naturally as his lips find Rick's again, fingers aiming up and curling against his walls, his lips gentle and plying. This was supposed to be good. He was determined for it to be.

Having Five back in his space makes it easier to relax, shut off the noise between his ears and crowd it out of the way with the visceral presence of the man he-- he knows how he feels about him, he doesn't need to think the word aloud even to himself. He grunts into Five's mouth, self consciousness flooding away as he smoothes his hand over his chest and down his belly, groping him through his pants and unclenching his muscles. 

He focuses just on the feeling again. The drag of those calloused fingertips inside him, hard like rocks and probing with purpose. He feels the knobby knuckles as they catch and push past his rim, and feels the tickle of Five's mustache as it brushes against his lips. He focuses on the way the fabric of Five's pants feels against his palm, and the throb of his cock behind it. He doesn't give his brain any room to think of anything other than _Five, Five, Five_. 

Five covers him with his body and chooses to amplify the pace. He was fighting it. Of course he was fighting it, he chastises himself for his callousness. Those fingers twist with new purpose. He liked to draw it out, liked savoring the various noises and expressions he could pull out of his partner. A lifetime without had taught him to savor and catalogue, to hold every touch and brush dear. But maybe now wasn't the time for that. Maybe he needed to act, to overwhelm. 

So, pressing himself flush with Rick's side, Five's hand pulls his pants and briefs the rest of the way down, his cock eagerly releasing from its confines. He ruts against Rick's side, their cocks frotting together as Five's fingers thrust in unison. He bites at Rick's throat, his shoulder, pressing his forehead into the man's skin as he mouths wet kisses into his upper arm. A leg raises to open Rick further, exposing him to the room, but not for long-- never for long, as a third finger slips to join the pair, the stretch immaculate and burning, a little haphazard even as Five begins his pace again-- only in part because his hips wanted to move again, which they did, grinding cock and cock relentlessly as he twists his wrists and plunges inside of Rick, pulling him apart.

"Fuck!" Rick shouts, his head slamming back into the pillow again. This is what he did for Five all those months ago, systematically shutting off his brain for his own good. As the pleasure mounts, Rick finds it harder for any thoughts to break through the noise between his ears. Like a roaring waterfall, it drowns out any other noise, any other thoughts. Even the thoughts that if this were some kind of outrageously long con, this would be the point it was building to, the point where his guard is down. Even _those_ thoughts are absent. 

Instead, all he can feel is the tight press of fingers, stretching him out, slamming up into his prostate. His back arches and he grits his teeth, the tendons in his neck all standing out while his muscles all bear down and clench around those fingers relentlessly prying him open. He feels flayed alive, every inch of his body too raw and too vulnerable-- but those thoughts too are swept away by the tide when Five's fingers twist into him again. 

Five rumbles his satisfaction as he curls further over Rick, his breathing warm against his shoulder as those fingers twist, tilting until all three can find his prostate and milk him with it. He grinds against him with almost ruthless accuracy, barely thrusting his fingers but relying on the way they spread Rick's walls to make him writhe and shout, and it's only when his cock has grown swollen and nearly purple that Five withdraws.

But not for long. He fits himself between Rick's legs and smears his slick fingers over himself, coating his cock in the remnants of the lube before adding a generous dollop to his fingers and spreading that over himself, until he's as glistening as Rick's worn, scarlet hole. Five's hands drag down Rick's body to pin him at the hip, and with one, hard stroke he's buried to the hilt inside the older man. Their hips meet with the grind of skin on skin, and as Five's back curls above Rick, he snarls his appreciation into his throat like a predator, teeth sinking into his neck.

Rick's mouth drops open as sensation fills him so intensely he can barely take a breath in. His eyes snap open and his teeth bare in a grimace of ecstasy, and he gasps out so hard through his clenched teeth that he feels something throb in the side of his head, and realizes all at once that he's clenching every muscle in his body. He unspools his rigid body, going slack against the sheets, and wraps his ankles lazily around behind Five's thighs. 

"Jeeeeesus _fuck_ \--" his voice comes out as more of a whine than he would have preferred, but with muscle spasms claiming his body every few seconds in twitches and jumps, it's the best he can manage. The unrelenting pressure of Five's cock inside him makes his head spin, and he claws at the younger man's shoulders with nails long enough to leave red marks behind. 

It helps, the room being mostly dark. Not really being able to see clearly when he looks down, not being able to see his own body laid out in submission. He can see the side of Five's shirt, still hanging onto his shoulders by a thread, the side of it illuminated like a white wing in the light peeking through the blinds, diffusing it soft and gentle across their bodies in an array of fuzzy white-blue shapes that outline Rick's cock, and the hard lines of Five's belly. It's just enough to give him the footnotes of their conjoined bodies, and that's all he needs. 

"Five," he grunts, arching up towards him. "Five, you son of a bitch, _go_."

Rick can feel the self-satisfied curl of Five's lips against his skin, the bite turning into a grin as the man regains his sentience. He'd been content to stay still, save for a few shallow ruts. They only served to grind his cock into Rick's prostate, to electrify him with sensation even as he dealt with the new, burning stretch provided by his dick. He'd fucked into him despite the frantic clutching of his muscles, his body far too tight beneath him. 

This would normally be where Five took a breath, where he would savor and allow his partner to beg and ask him politely for his cock. But Rick wouldn't get there this time. And that was okay. It was progress at all Rick had let him come this far-- and it certainly spoke to the future, to fights Five would force himself to win, for the pleasure of seeing the man beneath him drawn taut with ecstasy, his voice a heavy growl, as deep as the hunger burning in Five's gut.

For now, civility could wait.

"What did I say?" Five's voice croons, sticky-sweet as his hand raises from Rick's hip to find purchase just under his jaw, on his throat. When Five looks up, his expression is hard, and his fingers clamp like a vice around Rick's neck, the motion so fluid it's sickening-- he's had practice. Five drags his teeth across Rick's lip, kissing him even as his hand tightens until the man turns red, " _Relax_ ," He growls when his teeth find Rick's ear, and he tugs the lobe between his teeth just as his hips withdraw, then snap forward.

There's no slow build, not for today. Five fucks into Rick with an animal snarl, and it's that same animal that sets the pace, fingers on his hips holding him still as their bodies begin to snap together, Five still holding Rick with a vice-like grasp.

The hand at Rick's throat actually _helps_ , in spite of the part of him warning that this could be the betrayal, this could be it, the moment of no return, the moment Five's been playing him for all this time. Those old thoughts can't break through the throbbing and roaring in his ears as his oxygen is cut off and he's fucked roughly on his back. 

That hand does its job in preventing him from unleashing the flurry of moans that keep getting caught up right under the edge of that palm digging into his adam's apple, the pressure building up. It keeps him from the shame of wailing like a virgin as Five plows into him, fresh sensations he hasn't experienced in decades washing over him. The strength in Five's broad, stocky body is incredible despite his short stature, and Rick bounces on the mattress like the scrawny deer he's built like, exiguous and helpless under the pleasure. 

Those nails at Five's shoulders very nearly draw blood, his mouth falls open soundlessly and his eyes roll back and shut. With every thrust it feels like his insides are being stirred around into a big, messy soup, boiling hot and inexorably dragging the rest of his body inwards like a black hole. And all he can do is choke and squeak behind Five's palm. 

The room fills with the wet sound of Rick's hole, the dry slap of skin on skin. Five grows lost in those quiet whimpers and cries, half-stifled by his own tongue and grit through clenched teeth. The hand on Rick's hip dips beneath him to grab his ass, and with a ridiculously easy heft, he manages to pull Rick up, and Five rushes to fill the space left on the bed in his wake.

His cock plows into Rick anew, the new angle of his hips allowing him to fuck into what feels like Rick's soul. He can feel the slight curve of Rick's ass as it frames his cock, and Five fucks him higher and higher onto the bed, until his hand on Rick's throat is the only thing preventing him from hitting the headboard. The fingers on Rick's ass are bruising, demanding, lifting him higher and bending him in half as Five pants wetly into his shoulder, driven forward by his hunger, by the clawing warmth that tears grunts and snarls from his own bared teeth.

That hand never relents, only offers the tiniest sliver of fresh breath through at a time: Enough to get Rick by, but not enough to fade the blood from Rick's face, or the rushing in his ears. Pinpricks of pain against his shoulder show when he's drawn blood, and Five makes no motion to stop or even slow, picking up the pace once he's certain Rick's got his claws in him until the man is bent nearly in half, prone and subserviant to the cock splitting him in two.

When Rick cums it's without an ounce of anguish or embarrassment over the fact that he'd just been fucked to an orgasm without his cock being touched once. He doesn't feel the need to hole up and hide or roll away from Five to conceal his shame, he just lays there and takes it in stride as Five fucks him right through the experience. He can't take a breath, every noise and burning lung trapped down inside of him by his lover's patient, insistent hand. 

He can't tell if he blacked out, or if he just _feels_ like he blacked out, or if there's even a meaningful difference between the two, but the continued plunge of Five's cock into his oversensitive body makes his muscles quiver like a wet kitten's, his hands sliding down from clawing at Five's shoulders to only holding him loosely just above the elbows. 

Lost in waves of pleasure, back arched up into Five's grasp in a complicated knot of limbs, all Rick can do is take it. The freedom to not have to do anything or _be_ anything or make any choices makes his head feel like it's full of clouds, and he sinks into it luxuriously. 

Five releases his hold on Rick's throat just before the man cums, he can only imagine the sensation pounding through him, while he does the same. Blood rushes to Rick's ears, air fills his lungs, and Five snaps into him with a renewed vigor, both hands grabbing Rick's hips and slamming him down as he begins to chase his own bliss. There's a low growl that's been stuck in his chest, expelled with every hard exhale. His hips continue to snap forward without mercy, despite the clenching of Rick's ass, of every muscle bearing down on him and going loose, leaving him pliant and open. 

Five's teeth meet Rick's throat, and it's there that he buries his face as he cums, spilling into Rick's loose hole, making him sloppier, wetter, and making Five groan a singing growl of, " _Rick_ \--" Never having been much of a talker.

Rick's eyes are unfocused and hooded as Five cums inside him, and as they slowly sag together in one big, sticky puddle of old men, the thoughts come creeping back into Rick's head, reframed in a new way. Any lingering doubts that were held tightly in the deepest recesses of Rick's mind that his relationship with Five wasn't genuine, a product of old, _old_ habit, are officially eradicated. They don't even try to argue with him on their way out the door. Five had just seen Rick at what he felt was his lowest, most vulnerable point. If Five was going to strike, that would have been the time. 

They weren't even surface thoughts. They weren't _Rick's_ thoughts. They were ancient, deeply embedded instinct that protected him from harm-- but he had no idea how heavily they were weighing on him still. Without them here, now, he feels light as a feather. He feels fucking tears fill his eyes, like a child. _Crying_ after sex. 

"Fuck," he croaks, turning his head away from Five to hide the tears. Stupid old man. Stupid emotions in his chest. Stupid weakness. Five's his weakness, he knows that's true-- as much of a weakness as Morty is. Rick's love puts people in danger, but there's no danger here and now. Just two old men wrapped up in a sweaty, affectionate embrace while Rick tries to pretend he isn't fucking crying. 

Five pulls away and out of Rick after an agonizing moment where he desperately wishes he could stay seated in the man. He wants nothing more than to stay here, curled in close and joined at the hip, but hygiene and the ache settling in his bones had something else to say about it. Five watches himself slip out of Rick, wants nothing more than to plunge his fingers back inside the man to stuff him full of the cum that leaks out. But he doesn't, dragging his hands down Rick's torso, instead.

He doesn't comment on the tears, knowing the place he was in all too well. Rick himself put him in that place. Instead he lays beside Rick in the bed, naked and spent and covered in cum and lube, both drying slowly in the muggy heat they'd created in the motel room. Fitting an arm beneath Rick's shoulders, Five pulls the smaller man against his chest, eyes slipping shut as he presses his nose into Rick's hair, smiling without speaking. He's a warm, supportive weight behind Rick, strong and unwavering. 

"I got you," He murmurs comfortingly against Rick's skin. There's a prickle of cold again, but then warmth floods into Rick's side anew-- Five really was getting good at those micro-jumps in time, and this time he brings with him a warm cloth, which he begins to work slowly down the delicate skin of his tummy, his thighs, cleaning Rick of the thick seed before it dries too tacky, or crusty. 

Five kisses anywhere he can reach. The top of Rick's head, the plane of his neck, the long, narrow expanse of his shoulder. His kisses are gentle and sweet, never lingering too long, nor joined by the familiar bite of his teeth. "I'm here," He promises, continuing to croon warm reassurances as his hand works down, finally pressing his forehead to Rick's temple as the hand brushes between Rick's legs.

Rick shudders hard, every muscle in his body turning to goo as he relaxes into the covers and lets himself be taken care of. His head is still too cottony to protest, so he lets the stronger man manipulate his body however he sees fit, wiping him down like a child. 

He rolls over to face Five when he's finished, shivering in the cool air of the motel room, naked and vulnerable and feeling different. It's not better or worse, but it's undeniably different than he felt before. His life up until this moment had been one long string of running away from vulnerability at every turn, but this time he faced it and invited it with open arms, and... nothing bad happened. He didn't get hurt. 

"Five," his voice is a soft creak, like an old noisy door. "You know, what you said. About-- you know. You-- how you feel. You know I-- you know?"

Even now, he can't summon the nerve to say it. Typical. 

Five leans over to the nightstand to deposit the filthy washcloth there once it's done and used, and he returns to curl protectively around Rick as if the thinner man even needed it. His nose is tucked into Rick's hair when the other deigns to speak again, and at his words his brows furrow, and he looks down at him. 

"Of course I do," He says without a pause, though after he does go silent, "Shit, was that seriously the first time it was said?" Suddenly he feels like an asshole. Usually that was a big deal. Maybe it made sense for them, though, that it was so casually spoken: After all, Five had felt it for some time now. Leaning down to catch Rick with an affectionate gaze, he nudges him, "I'll buy you flowers next time and make it special, to make up for it."

Rick gives an expression that's half-sneer, half-smile. "If you buy me flowers I'll eat them right in front of you."

"Maybe some dandelions, then. I ate a bit of those in the apocalypse..." Five hums, looking lazily to the ceiling.

"Hold that thought," Rick mutters, rolling out of Five's embrace. "Make the bed, I'll be back."

He pads into the bathroom to relieve himself, but no sooner does he lift the toilet seat than a green portal appears beside him. From outside the bathroom as he turns down the bed, Five hears Rick talking and for a moment mistakes it for him talking to himself, before the distinct sound of _two_ copies of Rick's voice hits his ears. 

"Ahgh-- what the fuck--"

"Just _hold still_ , you'll thank me later--" 

Followed by the sound of another portal, and the bathroom door opening. Rick walks back out, confused and annoyed, rubbing at one of his wrists. "That was fucking weird."

Five had teleported to his holster on the far side of the room as soon as he'd heard the intrusion, and Rick walks out nearly face to face with the stockier man, hand on a shiny, heavy magnum, "What _was_ that?" He asks, voice hard with suspicion, "Did I hear two of you?"

"Yeah, I don't know what just happened," Rick says, wiggling his fingers. "Another Rick showed up, grabbed my hand, scrubbed my fucking _nails_ and left again."

Five hesitates, lowering the gun, "Did he hurt you?"

"I don't think so," Rick flexes his assaulted hand in and out of a fist. "He just seemed fucking crazy. Unshaven, probably drunk, and obsessed with nailcare."

"You met crazy alternates of yourself before, or should we be concerned?"

"He just wanted to clean my nails, he's gone now. We can switch rooms if it helps you sleep better, but the chances of that guy coming back are slim. Unless he wants clippings next," Rick says, closing the bathroom door just to be safe.

Admittedly, Five does feel at ease with Rick's reassurance, and crosses the room to reholster his gun, giving Rick a bemused look, "You know I'm assuming your lack of answer means you have, right?" He admits, pulling back the final sheet on the bed, "I'm staying. If your alternate comes in though, I'm not responsible for his death."

"You kidding?" Rick chuckles as he climbs under the covers, utterly charmed by the notion of going to sleep in a _bed_ with a _lover_ , like he's some kind of married yokel. "The amount of crazy Ricks I've met could fill a fucking phone book."


	7. Chapter 7

"Just stay in the car, Morty, this won't take long." 

The last couple years of Rick's life have been weird. Not weird in the normal way, where he goes on insane adventures the likes of which normal minds can't blah blah blah. Weird in how... _domestic_ they've been. Having a steady partner who he sees every other week or so and contacts just to talk to way more often than that is... weird. He's never been in a relationship that's lasted this long, going on-- shit, has it actually been three and a half years already? 

Well, according to Rick and Five's overly complicated drunk math, according to quantum time and relative to their respective time periods and track records of time travel, they've known eachother for 13,487 years and 9 months, but really who's counting?

Morty got used to it a long time ago. As in, _got used to it._ He's never _approved_ of it, never been _okay_ with it, but after he figured out that his tantrum wouldn't dissuade Rick from being with this man (and furthermore as more time passed and Five became less and less likely to be a threat because he would have been by now, the legs were slowly knocked out from underneath Morty's main argument) But honestly, that's the best Rick could hope for. In the kid's defense, if Morty started seriously dating someone, Rick would feel some type of way about it, too. 

He's never outright told Five about his relationship with Morty, but he's pretty sure Five knows anyway. He's clever enough to figure it out. Putting labels outright doesn't matter anyway, because Five obviously doesn't mind-- he's been around the block often enough to understand the validity in unconventional relationships when he sees them. 

The normalcy that just having a domestic partner brings is fucking weird. Here Rick is, portaling into his lover's place of work, stepping directly out into a broom closet with a fucking present, disguising himself as any one of the suit-wearing tryhards who work here. He'd gotten ahold of an extremely rare xarflat egg on his most recent adventure with Morty, an egg from an endangered species, endangered for the very reason Rick had one of its eggs now-- they were unbelievably delicious. Creamy, sweet and fluffy when prepared, or even eaten raw. If he stripped away all the layers of weirdness, that it's an alien egg he has to teleport into a pocket dimension to give to his assassin lover, he really is just a man bringing a snack to his partner, and that's _weird_ for him. 

As he steps out of the closet to make his way to Five's room, he makes it halfway down the hall when he spots a bulletin on the wall broadcasting the date, and realizes that in his excitement to bring the treat to Five, he'd accidentally forgotten to account for time dilation when he switching dimensions. Sloppy work, and really something he would have chastized himself for a few years back. Being so excited to see someone that he'd not only fuck up but forget to do his math entirely? Embarrassing.

Besides, he knows the date on the wall well. He'd memorized the date with the same intensity that he knows Five has. This is the last day of his contract with the Commission. Which means he's probably in his room now, packing everything up. There might already be a version of Rick there with him, which could get weird since versions of himself rarely, if ever get along, even time-displaced copies of the same man. But maybe they could put aside their differences for some fun threesome shenanigans. Besides, the alternative was going back to the ship, making up some excuse for Morty why they had to make another portal to the same fucking dimension, portaling _back_ down-- it'd be a whole thing, and Rick's already more than halfway to Five's room. 

He knocks on the door and gets no answer. He waits for a minute, and then knocks again. No answer. Looking around to make sure the hallway is empty, Rick shoots a portal directy through the door, and steps through to the other side. 

And finds the room completely empty. 

Rick's stomach drops as he tries to think of reasons why. Maybe Five had just packed up super early. Maybe he'd moved rooms some time in the six months between where they presently are in the time stream and now. Maybe he'd gotten some time off for good behavior after all. Rick sets the egg on the bed, its importance forgotten, as he steps back out of the room and heads down the levels to the record hall, harnessing every last ounce of his willpower not to fly into a panic. There was an explanation, there had to be. Breathing evenly, he lets himself into the room with a key card he lifted off someone who had just come out of the room as he passed them, and starts sifting through the files. 

He doesn't find him under F for Five, but that's fine. He closes the cabinet again and moves over to the H section, for Hargreeves. Still nothing. His mouth is going dry as he crosses the room to the N section and breathes out an exhausted sigh of relief as he finds him filed under Number Five. With shaking hands he flips through his file on top of of the cabinet, breathing through his nose until he comes to the last page. 

Almost every line of the last page is crossed out with dark ink, except for a few words at the bottom that rattle Rick's entire world. 

Status: employment terminated. 

Rage fills Rick's whole body. He wants to burn this place to the ground, send it off in a blaze of fucking glory, but he has more important things to attend to first. He carefully closes the file and puts it back where it belongs, and promptly opens a portal back into the ship, where Morty is startled out of the half-doze he'd fallen into, still disguised as the Commission agent. He yelps and then relaxes as Rick drops the disguise with a flatly spoken, "Something's wrong. Go home, Morty," and he opens a portal directly under the boy's seat, dropping him through it and onto his bed back home. 

He adjusts for time dilation on his ship, shoots a portal and flies through it, and this time the date is correct, six months prior to the end of Five's contract. Six months before they _terminate_ him. He doesn't fuck with the disguise or the fanfare of knocking on his door. He's lost all energy for dramatics, and just opens a portal directly into Five's bedroom, climbing through it looking absolutely haunted. 

The Commission isn't a lawless place, nor are they stupid. They know how to track for temporal anomalies, and ones with Rick's signature always get special attention. It's no small amount of hatred that's come from the Handler never being able to actively pin anything on Five, when so many 'blips' in their radar always seem to congregate on Five's quarters. Usually, that means his greetings are bewildered, maybe a little frustrated and concerned, especially when he's so bold.

This time, though, Rick is greeted with an almost exuberant, "Rick!" And the scraping of a chair. His normally pristine white walls are covered in frantic scrawling, his bed unmade, wrappers and bottles littering the floor. Unlike Five, who is usually so neat it's annoying.

He stands from his chair in the corner to greet his partner, and only falls short once he sees the look on Rick's face, and his own falls in turn, "What happened." He says, tone serious. It usually takes a lot to bring Rick into a sense of despair, and that's all that pours off of him right now, in heaps and bounds, "Are you okay?"

Rick grabs Five by the biceps just to squeeze them. Just to feel that he's real, and finally the unpleasant ache that had been building in his chest from the moment he saw this very room barren with life unhinges and his face distorts in a grimace that perfectly captures his rage and anguish. 

"I didn't mean to, it was an accident," he growls, fingers digging sharply into Five's arms. "I wasn't fucking paying attention, and then I was there already and I didn't want to tell him so I didn't leave, I tried to find you-- you weren't fucking _there_ \--"

"Hey, hey," Five's eyebrows are pulled heavily over his eyes as his hands shift to break from the bruising grip Rick had on his biceps. He reaches up to grab Rick's jaw, to force his head down and his eyes to look him in his own, brilliant green meeting glassy black, haunted by something he wasn't quite explaining, "Take a breath. Calm down. Try again. Where were you? Who didn't you tell? Where wasn't I?"

"You weren't _there_ ," Rick pulls away abruptly to pace the room, agitated and furious. "I went to the last day of your contract, and you weren't _there_ , Five. You were _gone_ , you were-- I fucking went to the record room and it said TERMINATED, Five, employment _terminated_. It was all fucking redacted, they're gonna _kill_ you, Five--"

Five's expression goes hard and he goes quiet. He doesn't fight Rick pulling away, nor does he go to him when he begins to pace. Instead, Five stays rooted to the spot, eyes wide and somewhat incredulous, brows pulled low over his eyes. His breathing has gone almost nonexistent, except for the heavy, silent rise and lower of his chest and shoulders. He seems to be actively repressing himself. He had to, or he'd tear the Handler apart, himself. 

"How do you know that," He says, turning to look at Rick finally after about three agonizingly long minutes, "You're sure you had the right file? You sure it was terminated? Could I have gotten time off?"

"Unless there's more than one Number Five here, I had the right file," Rick rants, gesturing wildly with both hands as he paces. "The whole page was redacted except for the bottom where it said employment terminated. They wouldn't give you time off for getting your brain scrambled, you think they'd give you time off for _anything?"_

He knows Rick's right, but that doesn't make hearing it any easier, and Five turns on Rick with a snap, "What's the point?" Five snarls, eyes wild. He doesn't expect an answer, "I've done everything they've asked. I've killed every single person they asked me to," Present company excluded, in which case he very much did the opposite of killed him, "How could they do it..." He mutters, staring at a spot a couple feet in front of him. 

It isn't a question of How could they, morally, but rather, physically.

"Was the Commission destroyed? Was everything normal?" Five asks, because no way did he go down without a fight.

"It was fine," Rick says, gesturing angrily around the room. "All this shit wasn't even here anymore. Your room was barren. Which means you were gone by a few days at least, enough time for them to get in here and clean out all your shit and repaint the walls."

All the fight goes clean out of him and he sags into Five's chair, his leg bouncing angrily as he runs his hands through his hair, too tight, pulling some out by the roots. It's not fair, Five has done _everything_ for these people and still they bleed him fucking dry-- literally.

"That doesn't make _sense_ ," Five mutters. He's still standing in his spot, still rooted to the ground, "Why would they do that. Why would they _do_ that?" 

His mind buzzes as he thinks of every antagonistic interaction he'd had with Handler, even worse than he'd had with Carmichael. He thinks of every time he took liberties at work, whether to interact with Rick or just because he was feeling particularly petty and wanted to see how a timeline would go. He thinks of every time he used his jobs to further his own work, and how much that could have theoretically added onto his bill. Did it end with his death? Was that the final bill to be paid in obligation for his philandering? 

Or, more realistically, did no one escape The Commission, and they were so used to hopeless agents dying before their time that Five was a loose end that needed tying with a sweet, clean bow?Five chews his tongue for longer than he realizes, the air between them electric and furious, a kiln ready to explode at the slightest touch. 

"No," He finally says, and turns with a flourish, barely seeing Rick. He teleports to the far side of the room, "Fuck that. FUCK that, Rick!" Five shouts, looking over his shoulder at the despondent man languishing in his chair. He's on top of his bed, and his finger hits the wall at a blank spot, right above his window, "I'm close. I'm not going out unless I take this entire goddamn place with me, and if I can't do that? I have a back up plan."

Rick has puzzled over and over Five's math before, again and again, but it's like reading another language. It required an understanding of inherent, organic abilities that Rick just doesn't have. Between Five's explanations and Rick's own level of mathematical understanding, Rick has been able to understand everything Five has already written down, but actually being able to postulate _new_ math using the same equations calls for an innate ability to read organic capabilities that Rick simply doesn't have access to. It turns out there _is_ something Rick can't do, and it fucking eats him alive that he can't help. 

"The same backup plan you've been working on for 40 years?" Rick asks, his mouth set in a grim line.

Five knows that look, and his stomach clenches at what it represents. He stares at the wall with frustration. How many times had he written these strings of formulas, with none of them coinciding? How many times had he rewritten, rephrased, reworked his own math into something new, only to be met with bunk? Rick, for all his genius, couldn't help. It was internal. It was his.

"This time it's different, Rick. I'm close. Closer. I made a mistake somewhere, Rick, I can feel it. The past forty years don't fucking matter, and I've spent the last five pouring over each subset, each vector, and I've narrowed the field of error to right here," Five grinds his finger into the wall, "If I can find where the math doesn't match, I've got it, then I can go home. I'll be _fine_." He has to sound confident when he says it, or he'd sound desperate.

"Five," he reaches up to grab that hand, pulling the man down off his bed, and cups his face in both hands. " _Fuck_ the math. Okay, don't fuck the math, but fuck this _place_. Fuck the commission, fuck the stupid contract. Let's fucking blow this popsicle stand, you and me."

It _is_ desperation in Five's eyes when he looks at Rick, furrowed and concerned. Five's breathing is hard, his mind buzzing even as he stares up at the other man, "I'm not asking you to leave your family, Rick," He says seriously, his voice low.

"They'll be fine, I leave them for long periods of time a lot, they're used to it," Rick says, rubbing his thumbs behind Five's ears as he threads his hands together behind his neck. "It wouldn't be forever, just until you figure out that math, right? You could figure it out on the run."

Christ, what Five wouldn't do for that to be an option. What he wouldn't pay to have all the time in the world to stay with Rick, to figure out the math, get back to his timeline, live a happily-fucking-ever-after with this man that had come to mean so much. What wouldn't he do for that blissful, happy ending where he gets the guy _and_ the family? 

But The Commission had never dealt in happy endings. This news was only further proof of that.

"You think they don't know about us, Rick?" Five asks, his voice a soft, angry grit through clenched teeth. "They can't prove it, but that doesn't make them stupid, and we haven't been the most secretive." He excises himself from those hands, wanting nothing more than to lean in, to press back, to allow himself some goddamn comfort when his heart feels like it might pound out of his chest. 

Five pulls away to begin pacing now, taking his turn watching the walls, scanning his own math. "We go, and just what do you think happens to my family? What do you think happens to _yours?"_

Rick opens his mouth to argue that they could bring Morty with if they had to. Hell, they could bring Summer and Beth too, and even _Jerry_ if they refused to leave without him, but the words fall short. He knows as much as Five does how much it would be a disaster to be on the run with all of them at the same time. And even if they could somehow manage it, even if they could somehow live in a space ship with the whole family without ripping one another apart, that doesn't account for the other point. _Five's_ family. 

They don't even know which dimension Five's family is _from_. If they did, they could have solved Five's problem years ago. But if the commission going after his family is a legitimate concern, that must mean they know where he's from. 

"Fuck that," he says, firmly. " _Fuck_ that. You think the commission knows where you're from and they're just not telling you? Let's find out. They've gotta have that shit written down somewhere. Let's burn this motherfucker to the ground."

"And how does that solve anything?" Five groans with frustration, continuing to pace. His shoes groan as he turns on the ball of his feet, the fast snap too much for the leather, "You think we can take on the entire Commission? They have backup through all of time and space! It's a suicide mission if we fail."

But wouldn't it be something, Five thinks, to slaughter the entire organization that had spent the last 5 years fucking him up the ass. To enact a _sliver_ of the vengeance he feels coiling sickly in his heart like a viper, just looking for a reason to play. It takes a vice-like grip to think with reason, especially when reason would also be the first to say that Rick and him cold absolutely destroy the Commission, and every last man, woman, and child within it.

As much as Rick would love to be the killing blow for this entire fucking place, even he knows how stupid that would be to attempt. Not that they couldn't do it, because between the two of them they absolutely could, but because if they don't manage to get every last one of them, it would spell extremely bad news for them both, and for their families. 

He sighs angrily, ruffling his hands through his hair. "No, okay, okay. Not you. Just me," he says. "We don't have to play hard, just smart. I was in the records room a fucking minute ago, I've even got my disguise shroud with me. I can get there and get back into your file. I should have fucking looked the first time, I wasn't _thinking_ ," he mutters as he engages the tool at his hip, draping himself with a holographic image of a random employee, in the typical suit and tie. 

He takes Five by the cheeks and gives him a kiss on the mouth. "Stay here, and don't be stupid," he says, and then steps out of the room before Five has a chance to argue. 

Luckily, he even still has the keycard he lifted off that employee in the future, so he walks importantly towards the records room, holding himself up tall and avoiding bumping into anyone like his life depends on it. Or rather, the lives of Five's family, all six of them weighing heavily on his shoulders, dragging behind his ankles. The stakes of his missions have rarely been this high. 

Letting himself into the records room, he finds it busier than it had been last time, but no matter. He walks like he knows where he's going, his confidence affording him relative invisibility as he makes a beeline directly towards the N filing cabinet. He opens the same drawer he opened just minutes ago, forcing himself to breath evenly as he combs though the files. 

Nueman, Nuhall, Nullers, Nuomer-- wait. He looks over the files again, and sure enough, the spot that the file should be in alphabetical order is just plain missing. Rick's blood boils as he realizes no shit they wouldn't just leave it in the public records room while Five is still employed. Not when Five is their most prized possession and also an extreme flight risk. It wouldn't matter if Five didn't have the right clearance to get into the room, he can fucking _teleport_. 

There's only one person Rick can think of who would have his file hidden away somewhere secret, and every one of his steps practically leaves flames behind it in his fury as he marches back towards Five's room, and carefully lets himself back inside while no one is looking. 

"Okay, big surprise, it's not there," he says, dropping the disguise. "But I can think of only one person who'd have the fucking pleasure of filing you away after they've crossed you off the list."

"The Handler," Five says. He'd tried to go back to his work, had tried to look for anything he could have done to distract himself and remain calm. He had hoped he'd be able to. Then again, he'd also been filled with a particular kind of anxiousness as the time had gone on. If Rick returned with his dimension, where did that leave him, exactly? Was he actually going to go back in time to his family?

What reason did they even have for believing him? For coming _with_ him? Would they laugh in his face when he arrived, old and cynical, and demanded they all pile into the space ship? And then where do they go? Five's entire family had never been known for their cooperation, and the more time Five had to think, the more he had to doubt-- but he needn't have bothered. If The Handler had his file, there was no way they could get it-- Five had his doubts she even required sustenance that wasn't the suffering of other human beings.

Five shakes his head, turning back to face his desk and continue to hastily scrawl, "If she's the one with my file, we're fucked," Five says sharply, voice crisp, leaving no room for argument. "She's heavily guarded, and she _hates_ me. We might as well levy the entire place in that case."

"So cause a ruckus," Rick says, reaching out to grab Five by the lapels of his jacket and force him to face him again. "Get her attention. Get her out of that office, do whatever it takes. Pull a fucking fire alarm, punch someone in the face in the hall and run, whatever you have to do to let me in there for five minutes. All I need is five minutes."

Five doesn't meet Rick's gaze, not right away, and his voice is hard. "You're going to die if you push this, Rick," He mutters, his voice just as tight as the white-knuckled hands on his jacket. "What's your fucking plan? Go in there and poke around? Hope she has it on her desk with a neat little bow and labeled 'Five's File'?"

"You think I don't have ways of finding secret compartments? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" Rick grins with no humor or pleasure. "Worst case scenario, she has some bullshit trap that springs and kills me and I go home. It doesn't matter if I die, remember?"

"What do you think happens when she sees that for herself? When you die and reappear, over and over again until you run out of clones, or-- _what?_ Seriously," Five turns to the man, concern pinching his face, his shoulders tight, "She'll go to the source, Rick. She'll figure it out," He's nearly pulling out his hair with frustration, "She's blow up your entire dimension if she could say she killed you in doing so. Maybe especially so she could say she killed you in doing so!"

Rick laughs cruelly. "She could fucking try, sure. A while back I broke my phoenix protocol because of a... weird experience I had with it. Smashed it to pieces, broke it down, and then when I died you know what happened? I was redirected to another Rick's protocol. I didn't even _plan_ for that to happen, it just _did_. She could chase me for the rest of her fucking life and kill me every single day and she'll still die running before I'll run out of universes to wake up in."

Five stares at Rick for what feels like too long. The stakes are too high, this is happening too fast-- If he had more _time_ he could just--

But no. That was the problem with this whole thing, wasn't it? There wasn't enough time. He didn't have enough time. Neither of them did. With knowledge of how this ends, there was a countdown clock on his termination, and Five did not work well with deadlines.

Turning back to Rick, Five frowns, jaw clenching, "Five minutes?" He asks, sounding like he hates every syllable.

"Five minutes," Rick says, giving Five another firm kiss on the lips before taking a step back and raising the disguise again. "I'll find that file or my name isn't Rick fucking Sanchez."

Five wants to believe Rick's promise, can think of nothing else he'd rather hear. But his smile is tight as Rick leaves before Five's rationality can catch up with him, and he's left alone in his room with his thoughts. If it's time that Rick needs, it is time Five will supply. He vanishes from his bedroom, leaving nothing but the whisper of a breeze on his papers in his wake.

Appearing in the cafeteria, Five scans the crowd. Due to the nature of the business, of Time itself within the Commission, the place is always packed. Agents returning from duty, assassins seeking one of the few creature comforts they can indulge in; the place is packed floor to ceiling with assassins and desk jockeys alike, and none so much as give Five a second glance as they brush past him to add to the swirling, well-organized chaos of the working lunch room. They're all at least familiar with his particular mode of locomotion on a cursory basis. 

He skims through his options. A food fight was childish, but so was blatantly picking a fight. There was nothing as ordinary as a manual fire alarm throughout the entire Commission, relying instead on automatic sensors and advanced fire suppression systems. Without options and without time to plan, Five went with ordinary: to many of these people it wouldn't matter, anyway. If things worked out, no one would be the wiser, it just had to be aggressive enough to work for ten minutes and bad enough to drag The Handler out of her den to sort it out personally. It made his decision easy enough.

One Danish left and Five knew who would go for it. A large man, larger than him and twice as wide, spoke with a smaller woman at his side, colorful mascot masks in their back pockets. A tier beneath Five, himself (Because no one was truly on his level) they were known throughout the Commission for the violence in their work, their tactics bloody and recklessness. Just dangerous enough to cause a ruckus but, not being Five, not an actual threat. Five teleports in front of them and takes the final Danish, even as the man was reaching for it.

"You kidding me, Old Timer?" Comes the incredulous, low voice behind him.

Five turns with a slow, innocent smile, the picture of a grandfather you might otherwise find in a park, playing chess and feeding pigeons. He takes a bite of the Danish. "Oh, Hazel. Cha Cha. I didn't even see you there." He takes another bite.

"Man, you really wanna be doing that?" Cha Cha, the woman beside him, sounds tired.

Looking at the pastry in his hand, Five smiles indulgently, eyes wrinkling without mirth, "Oh, I think I do."

Five teleports away, dodging the first volley of bullets as the entire cafeteria ducks and scatters, screaming. This ought to draw The Handler's attention. The pastry sticks out of his mouth as he ducks behind a pillar, trusting the commission architecture to be strong enough to withstand bullets, and it doesn't disappoint. To many, a firefight over a cheese danish might seem a little extreme, but to the sort of people the commission employs, to whom violence is a currency, this is practically a formality. Besides, everyone knew not to get in between Hazel and his vices.

"You really shouldn't'a done that!" Cha Cha shouts over the shrieks of terrified deskworkers and clattering of trays and feet as they rush to get out of the crossfire. 

From her office, the Handler hears distant shrieking and sighs loudly. She taps a few buttons on her computer to bring up surveillance and cycle through the cameras until, sure enough, she finds a ruckus in the cafeteria. She leans over to her phone to push the intercom button. 

"Travis? Cleanup in the cafeteria," she says lazily, attempting to contact the guard for the cafeteria, but after a moment she hears no response. "Travis? He~llo?" Still nothing. She releases the button with an angry sigh and stands up from her chair, re-adjusting her bodice. "Useless. If I need something done around here I have to do it myself." 

Five isn't aiming to kill. In fact, Five isn't aiming at all. He's not _shooting_ at all. He doesn't have a gun out or a battle plan. Without the ability to teleport and without any agency, Cha Cha and Hazel are about as dangerous as a dog having a tantrum: scary once it got too close, but toothless if kept at a distance. And that's exactly what Five aims to do. 

Avoiding the main crowds as much as possible, Five teleports from pillar to pillar, the Danish hanging from his lips like cardboard. He didn't actually care to eat it, the stakes of the mission wouldn't even allow him to consider having an appetite, but in addition its constant presence sought to enrage the larger of the two every time Five would appear for a brief second, only to take cover again. Hazel had a thing for his sweets. Cha Cha, just as guilty of firing beside him, mostly acted as his support, attempting to cut off any paths Five might take out or away.

There's a lull in the firefight, and that's when Five appears by the churning ice cream machines in the corner, and it's only then that he takes another, proper bite. "I'd heard sugar withdrawals could be as dangerous as nicotine, but I had no idea it was _this_ severe," he calls. 

"Boy, are you _mocking_ us right now?" Cha Cha shouts, and releases a volley of bullets. Bullets that, as Five teleports away, embed in the ice cream machine, slowly beginning to empty the vats onto the floor.

The swish of a petticoat catches his eye, and Five looks up from his newfound position on top of one of the tables to find The Handler, who he teleports to the side of, as though he were an innocent bystander in this. "You ought to keep your pets on their leash, Ms. Handler," He hums, voice low, then offers her the last half of the pastry, "Danish?"

She does take it, predictably, and pops the single bite into her mouth. She licks the sugar off her fingers and narrows her eyes at him with a callous (and entirely gut-wrenching, considering the circumstances) "Office. _Now_."

"You don't want to stay?" Five asks, shamelessly buying time wherever he could grab it. The walk from her office to the cafeteria alone was three minutes, which meant that the travel itself would take six. Anything he could buy on top of that was gravy to Rick. He could only hope the man had taken his five minute deadline as concrete. Five gestures to the mess he'd made, to the two assassins now standing stock-still among the destruction like dogs caught digging in the trash, "Hazel, Cha Cha and I were just having a friendly spar-- isn't that right?" He raises his voice to the two, who visibly seem to start and stand up straighter.

Hazel's the first to break, predictably so, "Ms. Handler, ma'am, he took the last danish intentionally and I was just looking to put him in his place, is all. I'm pre-diabetic, I have to keep my blood sugar up or else--"

 _"Can it_ , Hazel," she snaps harshly, and his jaw snaps shut. She reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "You know, I really didn't expect better from a pair of junkyard dogs like you two, but _you_ , Five? Getting into a petty firefight in the cafeteria, I mean--" she lets out an exasperated sigh, her hand falling from her face to her thigh with a loud slap. "What on earth has gotten into you? You see the light at the end of the tunnel finally and suddenly you're filled with determination to trip over the finish line? This is _embarrassing_ for you, I really thought you were better than this."

"I've always thought it looked fun, rolling in the mud," Five admits with a fond sigh as he looks over the destruction he caused. His tone is amicable, almost friendly as he stands at Handler's side. In her heels she towers over him, but what else is new? "I thought I ought to give it a shot before my tenure here sees its end. I'll miss it," He sighs, glancing sideways at her. Anything to continue the conversation, he continues, "I find it hard to believe you've never wanted to play dirty, Handler."

Unfortunately she doesn't really seem to be buying it. She squints at him suspiciously in a way that slicks ice down his spine, though he doesn't show an iota of that outwardly. 

"I'm sure," she says flatly, turning on her heel and heading for the door. "To my office, Number Five. We'll discuss this in private. As for you two, you're free to go. I really can't expect better from you, anyway." 

Hazel and Cha Cha run from the room like their pants were on fire, and the Handler claps her hands together to get Five's attention. "Chop chop," she announces. "We don't have all day."

On the other side of the complex, Rick had let himself into the Handler's office with ease-- she didn't even shut the damn door on her way out. He was basically invisible in his disguise, unnoticed by anyone in the hall as he slunk into her small office and began rooting around carefully in her belongings. He has a device running scans in his palm to make sure he isn't about to spring any traps, and when he finds one such trap in the lowest drawer of her desk, he knows he's found gold, and he sets to carefully unwiring the gun inside, rigged at an upward angle through the open keyhole to shoot the trespasser squarely through the chest. 

"You seem on edge, Handler," Five asks with casual ease, his hands tucked into his pockets. His usual pace is a quick clip, making up for a short stature and accompanying legs with fast strides. But right now he seems downright relaxed, as though he'd belonged in the Commission halls his entire life. In many ways, this version of him had. Whatever twisted, murderous bastard they'd created deep in the catacombs where he was born. Anything to buy Rick time. Anything.

With one step he deliberately steps on his shoelace, and with another he pauses, kneeling down. He takes his time tying the expensive, leather loafer, old fingers reliably unskilled when it came to fine motor functions. He used even that to his advantage, all the while making casual conversation, "Surely if you miss my presence you know here to find me. It would be nice to have a guest who actually understood my place of employment. My siblings never were very bright," He says, the smalltalk feeling almost acidic on his tongue, like it hurt to say.

The Handler sighs, slapping a folder against her hip. A quick glance tells him at least it's not Five's file, which would just be the icing on the shit cake at this point if it were the case. 

"I'm a very busy woman, Number Five. You know that," she says impatiently, checking a delicate watch on her wrist, held on by a thin glittering chain. "I have a meeting in less than an hour and I've got a lot of red tape to lay down before then. The future of the commission might very well hang in the balance during this meeting, and you've got me out here playing clean up when I should be preparing because you decided to-- what. Roll in the mud? You know what, catch up with me, I don't know why I'm standing around waiting for a geriatric teleporter to tie his shoes." 

She turns on her heel again and begins briskly walking down the hall once more. Five teleports to her side almost immediately, trying to look bemused despite his head racing. The future of the Commission? There was no way that could be about him. Rick had said it was a few days before his final day, and he was only about 6 months out now-- or had he said it had to be at least a few days? Five's brain kicks impatiently into overdrive as his heart hammers in his chest, all hidden beneath a cool, calm exterior, entirely devoid of any emotion apart from his usual playful sarcasm.

"You're certainly something today. Geriatric?" He sounds almost offended as he says it, and has to actively avoid spitting poison as he keeps up the charade, "Since when do you leave things to the last minute to organize? The Handler I knew would hardly wait until an hour before a meeting to play with red tape. I thought that was your favorite part."

"If you _must_ know, I've been spending all morning cleaning up _another_ idiot's mess, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little bristly this morning," she says coldly as they make their way back towards her office much too quickly for Five's liking. He can't get her to stop again, he knows that much, and she doesn't seem all that willing to even slow her breakneck pace for him, taking long strides on longer heels to carry them as swiftly through the halls as she can apparently manage. At this rate they might make it back in just two minutes. His best bet is to just catch her up talking about something enough to catch her off guard. 

And he doesn't have a lot of time to think, as they quickly approach the end of the hall, one corner away from the corridor leading to her office. 

"Hey," Five says, and his tone almost sounds-- Gentle?

His stomach riots against himself, churning sickly in his gut. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and he can already smell the sickly-sweet perfume that coats her room from here. Glancing down the hall to make sure they're alone, Five reaches to grab The Handler's wrist, pulling her against him, then pinning her to the wall, trapped in the circle of his arms. He squints up at her, his body firm and unyielding. "I'm not kidding," He says, in some of his finest acting to date, "It's-- odd, how finite six months feels," Five tries to sound as anguished as possible, "It makes you think about what you'll miss," At that he lets his eyes wander, pointedly, lingering on her throat, on the hips trapped between his arms. If she spontaneously combusted in his arms, it'd be no great loss.

 _This_ catches her off guard, and finally gets her to stop walking, just inches away from coming around the corner of the hall. She inhales sharply, nearly dropping her folder as her back hits the wall and knocks the wind out of her, and her face actually _flushes_ in surprise. Funny, he could have been convinced she didn't even have a beating heart. 

"Number _Five_ ," she gasps, one hand coming down on his shoulder, the other still clutching her folder. He's never actually seen her _flustered_ before. "What has gotten _into_ you?"

"Sentimentality in my old age, maybe," Five murmurs thoughtfully, keeping his voice low, his eyes on the swelling curve of her breasts, visible over the bodice of her dress. 

He doesn't move right away, but when he does, it's to close the space between them, hand slipping from the wall to land, warmly, on those hips. Vaguely, he wondered if he could push her through the wall, if it was made of brick, or drywall. His face betrays none of those thoughts, and his voice is warm. "Five years seems so long, and then you come to the end, and..." Five's thumbs rub warmly against her hips. It's only then that he looks up, catching her eye, "I guess I still took my time for granted. You know what they say about old dogs."

She glances around them in both directions, but the hallway is empty. Strange for this time of day, but there _had_ just been a gunfight in the cafeteria. She swallows hard, her throat visibly bobbing. "I thought-- I had no idea you still had feelings," she says breathlessly, her eyes focusing back down on him. Her rapid pace towards the office is completely forgotten, and that's all he wanted-- even if being here like this feels coercive and repulsive in ways that bring a slick of nauseous sweat to his lower back. 

"It's a curse of mine, to recognize only in the arbitrary," Five looks away in a grand display of remorse and what would appear to be sorrow pinching at his eyes, knitting the spot between his eyebrows. "I didn't care about my family until they were gone, I hated my home until I didn't have one. And now, six months?" He laughs, shortly, peeking up at her in a gesture that was only half-insincere, because a part of him churned at touching her like this, speaking to her like this. She seemed so... _normal_ , like this. A girl fluttering over a man in a hallway, a stolen moment between old lovers. Except they weren't lovers. They never really had been. 

Five swallows heavily before he speaks next, breathing heavily through his nose, "Six months and I am only now realizing how much time I wasted. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised."

"You broke my nose," she reminds him, but sounds fond as she says it. "And only _now_ you're realizing? You really are some kind of mad dog, aren't you?" 

Her arms finally come up, laying her folder flat across his shoulders so she can coil her hands around the back of his neck. This is exactly the time he needed to buy for Rick, and she's falling for it. If he can just keep her here for a few minutes more-- even if he has to sequester her away into a closet and fumble his way through a heartsick rutting, anything to give Rick time, to get them home. His heart shudders as he thinks of home. 

"You know my idea of foreplay is...." Five tilts his head up at The Handler thoughtfully, smiling tightly at her, "...Skewed." He steps closer, his hips finally making contact with hers, arms sliding around her waist. If he pretends just right, he can be a different person. Hell, the majority of his life has been spent experiencing unpleasantries and compartmentalizing appropriately. His fingers hitch up her dress, just a little, enough for her to feel the fabric raising but not substantial enough to expose her in any way. 

Five raises an eyebrow at her when he does, almost challenging in nature, "From what I recall, you like that about me," He murmurs, his voice a heavy purr.

"Number _Five_ ," she gasps, primly, as if anything about her is demure or innocent. "Right here, in the hallway? My office is just around the corner, we could close the door..."

"And here I made all that ruckus so the campus would be emptied," Five teases, voice low as he holds her still, "I _said_ I wanted to roll in the mud, didn't I?" His lips just barely graze her neck as he leans forward, breath warm on her skin. "I'm asking you to roll with me, Handler."

Just down the hall, the trap unsprung, Rick hunches over the Handlers desk, desperately pawing through Five's file. He finds his dossier easily, but his dimension isn't listed there. There isn't even a panel for it conveniently left blank-- which is fine, that makes sense. It's probably deeper in the file, an extra precaution just in case Five got his hands on it somehow. It might not even be listed outright, it could be encoded, in which case all Rick needs to do is take a passing glance at every page inside the folder and they can take the time to pore over it later using his memory gun. He's so close he can _taste_ it.

Five's lips find the Handler's, but something feels wrong. Not just for him, that much is obvious-- but for her, too. She moans against his mouth as her tight skirt rides up between her thighs, but despite the heat in her voice, she feels a cold pit in her stomach. She's been around the block enough times to know not to believe something is true just because she wants it to be. No matter how _badly_ she wants it to be. 

Nothing in the Handler's life has ­ever come easy before. Nothing has ever just worked out the way she wanted without her pouring her blood, sweat and tears into it. Five wouldn't just _suddenly_ be after her after years of antagonistic, largely one-sided flirting. It doesn't make _sense_. No matter how desperately she wants to cling to the heat building in her stomach, she has to cling to rational sense-- it's all she has. And her gut tells her something is wrong. Five wouldn't start a childish fight in the cafeteria and then rut her against the wall, that's something she would _daydream_ about, it's not something that would happen in actual _reality_. 

So she breaks the kiss, threading her fingers into his hair with a sigh. "Broom closet," she says, glancing up past his shoulder at the blank wall behind them, anticipating that Five will turn and look for the door, especially because there isn't one there. He knows the layout of this place like the back of his hand, it's always the first thing he does in a new place, so he can teleport around with ease, and the cognitive disconnect of her referring to a closet directly behind him has the desired effect of taking his attention off her for just a moment. A moment is all she needs. 

She spins out of his grasp, her pistol already coming up out of her thigh holster. If Five had managed to distract her for just a second longer, he might have been able to disarm her. She sees a figure hunched over her desk at the end of the hall and fires twice without even hesitating. It could very well be her fucking manager for all she knows-- but she's taking no chances. Shoot first, deal with the consequences later. 

Immediately, Five feels as though he were doused in ice. Twin gunshots pierce through the air right next to him, and he reels as he grabs his head, "Are you CRAZY?!" He snaps at her, even as adrenaline floods him like a dam bursting. He doesn't have time to think, barely can with the ringing still echoing through his ears, and so he doesn't.

A warp appears at the Handler's side, and then in her office, as Five shortcuts through the halls to appear in her office, his knees banging into the heavy oak of her desk hard enough to send a jolt of pain up his spine. He'd misjudged the distance by a foot, but it didn't matter. Her desk scraped heavily against the floor from his jump, and he quickly circles the desk to land at Rick's side, kneeling beside him-- "We have to go--" He says urgently, grabbing him by the shoulders and hissing as he kneels in warm, tacky blood

Rick clutches the wound in his stomach with one hand, slumped back against the filing cabinets. His disguise had dropped with the trauma of being shot-- the first bullet had luckily missed him, but the second dug home right into his guts, now leaking black, bilerous blood through his fingers. Not a good sign. 

"Your file," he grits out at Five. "On the desk--"

"Rick _Sanchez_ , what a pleasant surprise," the Handler croons as she enters the office, and reaches out to snap Five's file shut, tucking it alongside the other file against her hip. "Doing a bit of light reading during your visit?"

" _Fuck_ you," Rick coughs, and blood runs down his chin. He's had worse, quite literally, but she's hit him somewhere _bad_. 

"Shit," Five whispers, looking up as the shadow of the Handler splits the light from her doorway.

His eyes snap to the folder now on Handler's hip, then down at the man-- he clearly hadn't gotten everything they needed, and if this was already gone so far South, he needed to get his hands on that file. Mind racing with plans on how to evade the Commission for however long it took for Rick to regenerate and where they would meet, Five acts before he's got anything figured out.

Lunging to her side, Five yanks the folders out from under her arm, not really needing the bureaucratic nonsense in the other folder but really not giving a shit for her inconvenience, and he drops back to Rick, grabbing him by the shoulders, "Go fuck yourself, Handler," He snarls, holding his friend and taking off. Or trying, anyway-- his powers fizzle uselessly around his hands.

"Something wrong, Five?" the Handler doesn't seem at all surprised by the difficulty Five is having getting together enough juice to teleport himself and Rick out of the room. "Can't seem to get it up? Performance anxiety? You know, they make pills for that."

Rick reaches into his jacket and pulls out his portal gun, and Five's hand moves to cover his still-bleeding bullet hole. Rick is looking paler by the second, bleeding profusely from the hole in his gut. There's no saving him from a wound like this without medical attention, but Five is past the point by now where Rick dying gives him (much) anxiety. The blood loss makes Rick's grip weak enough that when the Handler kicks him in the wrist, the gun topples from his fingers, and her heel comes down on the chamber with the portal fluid, smashing the glass in a single stomp. It soaks in a useless green puddle into the carpet under them, joining the black pool of blood. 

"Tsk tsk, boys," she says, and steps up to Five's side to take the folders back. There's really not much of a point fighting it now. She drops Five's file into the wire wastepaper basket and sets the other folder down on the desk as she lights a cigarette, takes a single long drag from it, and drops it into the can with Five's file. The embers catch the corner of a paper, and it slowly starts to spread, until the entire can is ablaze, and the two men watch as Five's file slowly curls in on itself, burning apart. 

Rick's chest squeezes with agony, not because of his wound but because despite their effort, they _still_ fucked up. Rick doesn't fuck up often, and he _knows_ Five doesn't fuck up often. and the sting of failure here is much keener than if they were to just flunk some random adventure. The stakes were so fucking high here, to just whiff it at the end burns just as brightly as the trashfire in front of them. It's really the perfect metaphor. 

"So what was the plan here?" the Handler asks after exhaling the smoke dramatically. "Distract me with a hand up my skirt while your boyfriend finds a way home? And so close to the end of your contract, too, I'm disappointed. Almost as disappointed as I am in the idea that you think we would put something as _pedestrian_ as your dimension designation down on paper where just anyone could see it. Really, do you think we're amateurs?"

It isn't the burning of his folder that Five cares about, or even the shattering of Rick's portal gun. He cares about Rick's death, but only in the pain of his lover dying again due to his own oversight. He doesn't even care that she's goddamn blowing smoke in his face so thick it chokes him. His blood boils with rage and indignity, with failure and shame, uncertainty and frustration, all in equal measure, tidal waves crashing and hitting, deep in his gut-- but it's the entire short-circuiting of his powers that has him panicked, has his chest raising and falling in barely-controlled gasps.

"Wouldn't be the first time The Commission lacked professionalism," He snarls, with what little breath he can gulp, and he keeps his hand hard on Rick's gut, ignoring the burning ichor seeping into his pores. There's another rush of air that should be filled by their bodies displacing space and time-- but the wind settles around the pair as it had before leaving Rick and Five rooted to the floor, right where he'd landed.

Another trill of nerves licks up his spice-- "What did you _do_ to me? Why can't I teleport?" He demands, voice hot as he glances down, green portal fluid sinking into the floorboards. It doesn't help his nerves.

"I'm sure you'd love an answer to that," the Handler simpers, watching with pleasure as Rick struggles to keep breathing. "As much as I'd love an answer to _my_ question. This morning started out so promising. An important meeting lined up, a chance to move up in the hierarchy-- such excitement! And now here I am, standing in a room with two ex-lovers who are both about to die. _Again_. This always happens to me." 

" _Don't_ ," Rick starts, but it's all he can get out before another dark, heavy knot of blood works its way out of his throat and over his chest. 

"Oh, dramatic," the Handler sighs. "Although, you may have a point, Rick. Number Five, despite everything, your _obvious_ transgressions and _glaring_ disloyalties, you are still our best agent. I offer you a choice-- death on the spot, or a singular chance at redemption."

She holds her gun out, and then spins it around on her finger by the trigger so the handle is facing Five, instead. A bold move, but she knows that _he_ knows as much as he'd like to shoot her where she stands, it would be a fool's errand. Without his ability to teleport (and without knowing that his inability to do so would be eliminated the second he stepped out of her office) he would have no chance of fighting the weight of the entire Commission that would come down on him at once. Her offering her gun to him is as much a display of power as anything she's ever done to subjugate him. 

With two little words, she rends his heart apart. "Kill Rick."

Five's mind is so busy thinking about the what if's and how's that he barely hears anything Handler says until those two syllables leave her lips, with heart aching, terrible clarity. It's then that he looks up at her, eyes narrowed in a glare, nostrils flare as he clenches his jaw so tightly shut he shakes with the force of it. He hasn't let go of Rick, not once, even as a coughing fit tears at the older man's torso and spits blood that soaks fuzzily into the cotton of his suit.

" _What_ ," He finally manages, without moving an inch. He lets the silence hang in place, and notices that Handler certainly does, too. The only thing audible is the exhausted wheeze of Rick's lungs as they slowly begin to collapse, right under Five's hands. He can practically feel them deflate.

Five shakes his head, the tiniest of motions even feeling like major acquiesces when it comes to giving The Handler what she wanted, and a bitter sneer twists onto his lips, "Playing with your food, Handler?" He asks, voice low, barely containing the tremor in his throat. He would be embarrassed by the display of emotion if he knew for a fact it wasn't tears he was containing, but rage. He wondered if he could snap her neck before she turned the gun back to him and shot. "He's already dead. You shot him. Congratulations."

"He's not. He's still wheezing. Kill him," the Handler says coolly. 

Rick knows what this is. He knows it's a desperate attempt for her to regain control of the situation-- and he also knows that it's the only way for Five to even _kind of_ hope to get out of this situation alive. He knows, too, that he's going to die here either way, whether he slowly bleeds out or is put out of his misery. He knows he can't save Five here, that at best he could jump back in his ship the instant he regens and come back, but so much could happen in that time, and if Five can't even teleport... 

Five doesn't have unlimited retries like Rick has. He's only got the one, and then he's finished, permanently. And not just him, but his entire family and indeed his entire world by extension. That's a lot of fucking bacon to fry over one man who's gonna bounce back in a matter of minutes, anyway. 

He knows there's no guarantee that the Handler will be true to her word and count the deed as retribution, like she says. She hasn't been true to her word on anything else, so far. But Rick also knows it's Five's only chance, and it's a chance he's going to have to take quickly, or he'll lose his shot because Rick will expire anyway. With a rattling wheeze, he grips Five's forearm tighter to silently tell him it'll be okay. 

Five looks down at Rick, and only in the intimacy of their closeness can Rick see the deep-set sorrow in his eyes, the acceptance, even before Rick squeezed his arm. Of course he knows this is the only way, this was the only shot he had at surviving. Ultimately, it would be easier for The Handler if he died before his time, where they wouldn't have to worry about the nuance of deflecting an apocalypse from him and his 6 siblings. Ultimately, it would be fine opportunity to tie up a loose end.

But The Commission had put a lot of work into Five's genetic make up, and to get less than a full term with his abilities would be a failure to return on investment. It was just bad business. The Commission was, first and foremost, a business.

Furiously, Five snatches the gun from the Handler's hand, hard enough that the metal clicks on her nails and sends a cold bolt through him, "Sadism ages you, Handler," Five says, still half-cradling Rick in his arms and on his knees. He presses the metal against the man for a second, but it physically hurts him to do so, and not a moment later he pulls it away, growling under his breath as he swallows through the burning shame in the back of his throat.

"Rick," He mutters, hoping The Handler wouldn't be able to hear and knowing she would anyway, "Shit, just-- close your eyes, would you?" He half demands, half begs. There's no way he could watch the light go out in his eyes a second time, not so close.

"How sweet," the Handler says flatly. 

Ice plunges in Rick's stomach, and not for what's about to happen. He can see in the old bitch's eye that she isn't remotely convinced-- and why should she be? He's dying romantically in the arms of the man who was desperately trying to stop the bleeding seconds ago, only holding a gun now because he's being _forced_ to, with no other choice. That isn't the recipe for a man who has any chance of leniency being afforded to him after this. 

Especially since Rick knows he doesn't _deserve_ leniency in the Commission's eye. His only and best chance at survival is for his crimes to be less than his usefulness. And the only way to accomplish that is to take some of the weight of his crimes off his shoulders. If he can make the Handler believe that this is the end of them, permanently... maybe this could be survivable for Five. 

So with bile in his throat, both figuratively and literally, he spits out, "Really? All this time and you can't even look me in the eye? Fucking typical." He sees the Handler's eyebrows arch sharply in surprise at the acid in Rick's tone from the corner of his eye, and he knows he's going in the right direction. "Figured you'd give in to their leash in the end. I always fucking knew you'd choose your family over me. After everything I've done for you-- you goddamn well know I'm out of lives, you creaky son of a bitch. And you're gonna trade in my soul for a bunch of washed-up people you're not even _related_ to? You haven't seen them in fifty fucking years and I'm _right here_ \--"

Five's face twists as Rick speaks, and he realizes with horrible clarity what Rick was doing. And why not? They both knew it wasn't true, both knew that he'd never let his protocol run out of juice, especially not if he was planning a trip to The Commission's headquarters. He had back up plans on back up plans-- and what had he said earlier? He'd pop out of another Rick's if he didn't have his own. 

But the words still hurt, and the role he now got to play, even moreso, "They're my _family_ , Rick," Five says sharply, his voice contorted in pain as he presses the silver muzzle to his temple, but still can't quite bring himself to pull the trigger. His entire hand has seized tight, like carpal tunnel had eroded his entire skeleton and nervous system and taken control, forcing his hand into some sort of rigor mortis. He has to make this good, but it's hard to tell if his hesitation has its desired effect. He hopes the Handler savors his suffering, instead of grows irate from his procrastination. "This isn't personal, Rick. It's-- for my timeline. The future of my family," Five says, blinking, eyes burning.

Rick gathers up as much spit and blood in his mouth as he can and spits it right into Five's face, the edges of his vision going black as he summons as much venom into his voice as he can possibly collect to snarl out a biting " _Fuck_ your family."

Five clenches his jaw, nodding, "It's been fun, Rick," He mutters, very real sorrow in his tone as he squeezes the trigger and watches Rick slump back, reduced to little more than viscera. 

Without looking away, his eyes glassy and blank, Five holds the gun back to the Handler, handle-first, "Satisfied?"

"Are you kidding? My office is a _mess_ ," she says coldly, tucking the gun back into the holster strapped around her thigh. She taps a few buttons on the receiver of her phone and speaks into the intercom. "Yes, Vinnie? I need a suppression guard, a constable, and a full cleanup crew sent to my office quickly, thank you!"

Hanging up the phone she turns back to Five, still staring at Rick's body with a mix of complicated emotions in his eyes and she gives a heavy sigh, as if he's mildly inconveniencing her with his existential crisis. 

"Come on now, Five. You didn't _really_ think a man like Rick Sanchez would be there for you in the long haul, did you? You read his file. Really, I did you a favor. If you hadn't betrayed him, _he_ would have betrayed _you_ , eventually. And to think, all of this nastiness could have been avoided if you'd just listened to me when I told you not to talk to him," she says, offering Five a hand to stand up, after everything. 

He knows better than to sleight her now, so Five takes her hand, ignoring the aching sick that overtakes him as he does, as if touching her were actual poison. His eyes are dark, lightless, the deadpan expression of a lost man-- or perhaps just a man who _had_ lost. 

Five had wondered if he'd feel this sort of bone-deep ache again, after finding his family. He'd been halfway convinced he couldn't, the simultaneous shock of finding all six of their corpses among the rubble of his childhood home almost a bit too much for him to bear, but then he suffered the loss of Rick in his own apocalypse, and now _this_. It's impossible for Five to look away from Rick's body, even if holding the gaze makes his entire body begin to shake, he's clenched so tightly.

Pulling himself to his feet without incident, Five stands in that same spot, coated in blood and clenching, unclenching, not once looking over at the Handler, barely breathing in her smoke. He doesn't say anything. He has nothing to say.


	8. Chapter 8

A week in isolation, by Five's estimate. He'd been in a cage for a week. 

The Commission had done its best to distort his sense of reality, to alter the way time flowed. In a room held as brightly as this, who wasn't to say they had succeeded? Food was delivered irregularly, sometimes an hour apart from his last meal, sometimes 8. There was no consistency to schedule, or routine, and yet every time he was spoken to as if the Commission agents were on clockwork. In response to Five's deadpan condemnation of their gaslighting, they only replied with bland words about time and the passage of it, how circadian rhythms were so finnicky and it was 'Okay' if he lost track a little bit.

As if _he_ were the crazy one. 

Five's cell was a bare white box inside of a bare white room. Glass walls let him see out into what clearly looked to be some sort of medical center, with a single black screen embedded into the far corner, the screen showing absolutely no sign of anything. The chairs and utensils were all nondescript. There were no windows, the only light produced by glaring, massive fluorescent bulbs hanging by overhead, without so much as a flicker between them, casting the entire room in a brilliant, white bath of nothing.

And Five did have nothing. The first day he'd taken to scratching numbers into the walls with a screw taken from his bed, attempting to untangle the math keeping him in place, attempting to counterbalance whatever suppression stasis they had put him in-- He'd woken up some time later to his frame gone, the mattress placed on the ground with one pillow and one thin blanket, without ever remembering having gone to sleep in the first place. 

He resorted to his nails next. He scratched at the walls with his own fingers, carving half-indecipherable numbers and equations into the plaster with individual fingers until he bled sticky copper, before he'd move on to the next. Again, he fell asleep-- and this time when he woke up, he'd discovered his nails had been shorted to the quick, all of them, cut like he was a temperamental dog in need of grooming.

Teleportation was not possible. Escape was not possible. Even the agents responsible for bringing him his trays of food-- each meal as indecipherable in time as the last, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches served with mashed potatoes, sunny-side up eggs served with a glass of wine-- were flanked by four massive suppression guards, armed to the teeth. They were instructed to electrocute him if he even took a step toward them to gather his own meal. At this point Five just sat on the bar side of the pen, watching them through distrusting, messy hair. 

Perhaps it's lucky, then, that Five knows time as well as he knows the hairs on his body. The passage of it is ingrained in his soul, old habits from a Wasteland without it marking each hour like notches on a belt. Like clockwork, Five bites the corner of his finger until he bled, every hour placing another singular, red dot along the base of that ruined plaster wall.

It's how he knew it had been a week. 168 hours in a week, 168 neat pinpricks of blood, all set in a row. A week with his thoughts, a week without explanation. He had no idea what the Commission was planning or what their end goal was-- Worse, he didn't care. If they had wanted him dead, he would be by now, if they wanted him flayed, he would be;

If Rick could have saved him by now, Rick would have, even if he knows it's for the best Rick stays far away from here. 

Five sits with his back tight against the corner, knees drawn to his chest, eyes focused on the divot in the glass where he knew the door was, even if he couldn't see it currently. It's how he spent his time, now. Guarded, prepared, ready for a fight until he was forced unconscious, but bracing himself to succumb to it. The Handler was coming. He could feel it in his skin.

His head is full, which is the only thing that saves him from the madness of isolation-- but that's an old habit, learned the hard way. Really, the fact that the Commission thought they could break him with isolation of _any_ length was laughable, especially since this isn't even true isolation. Isolation was the aloneness of the wasteland, just him and Dolores-- fuck, thinking about her makes his entire chest squeeze. How he'd just left her behind callously like a dog forgetting about a plaything. It hadn't been his choice, his mind argues, the Handler wouldn't take him unless he left everything behind, but his heart argues back in equal measure, It doesn't matter.

It's really a constant battle between his heart and mind, as he wastes away the days. They make an effort to disorient and confuse him by changing his outfit every time he awakens. He doesn't know how they knock him out still-- some kind of electric pulse through the floor? A gas released into the chamber? All he knows is he went in wearing his suit, and woke up in a white tee shirt and cotton pants. The next time he was wearing a straight jacket, which took him only a minute to get free from, and then he was back in his suit. If they thought they could get to him through these petty mind games, they had another thing coming. 

The other thought that cycles relentlessly through his head is Rick. He knows Rick was lying when he said he didn't have any juice left in his protocol, but did the Handler believe him? Was it a believable enough performance? Is the reason he hasn't come back for Five because the Handler called his bluff and he's currently being hunted like a dog and he's on the run with his family? Or is it because he _can't_ get back? Did the Handler do something to the campus that prevents Rick from being able to portal into it? If they have some kind of technology that prevents Five from being able to jump, it's not a stretch to think they would have some kind of ward that could stop Rick from portaling in.

It seems to be an intentional move, for the most part. Five had never been a beast of nostalgia or sentimentality, but for the time spent alone, he found himself constantly innundated with memories so powerful he felt them as viscerally as he would a dream, a conscious, living nightmare of his memories, good and bad, surrounding the man; Then it's other things. Rick is still there, filtering in and out, but his memories move to thoughts of his siblings, memories buried so deep in his psyche Five hadn't touched them since those first few months in the Wastes, before he had Dolores to keep him company.

Five realizes a little too late that it's intentional. The memories are too real to be dreams, too visceral to be subconscious. It wouldn't be the first time that The Commission had used access to his memories as methods of training and manipulation; Hell, half of their Assassins were kept in line by deploying those same methods-- But Five had been unconscious when they'd been used before, spliced with hallucinogens and experimental procedures. 

This time the only thing they decide to do without is the lack of consciousness, so Five begins to notice when they start filling his little glass chamber with gas that makes his world distort. After a few hours, or days, or weeks dreaming, they begin to add pain where there previously was none. Five's memories begin to twist, until every interaction with his family is graced with a sharp bolt of electricity burning him from the inside, out. 

It's the systematic defiling of anything that makes Five Five. They start with his family first, picking apart memories in excruciating detail and adding pain until he wakes himself out of the dream screaming, muffled by a plastic mouth guard, no doubt the only reason he hadn't bitten off his own tongue to keep from screaming.

It's to the point that he assumes everything they do is intentional, an effort to break him down. When the guard rotation gets changed so he sees someone walk past his cell every hour despite never once looking in his direction or even acknowledging that he exists at all, he knows it must be a further effort to make him feel isolated. As if he'd ever cared about validation from faceless nameless guards. He doesn't need their attention to know he's alive, to know he's real. He lived for four and a half decades without the company or attention of others. 

It's the twisting of his memories that's getting to him more than anything. He'll be on the cot (when the cot is in his cell) and won't remember how he got there, but he can't move despite feeling no restraints, and the shocks will come like lightning down his spine, seizing every muscle in his body with wretched pain that leaves him shouting through the gag in his teeth. 

They don't have the technology to rewrite memories themselves, he knows, because if they did they would have saved all this time and effort and just done that from the start. Their only choice is to induce these memories by force and then try to trick his brain into rewriting them himself, alering them with pain and anguish so he instinctively relates memories of his closest loved ones with fear and agony. 

Unfortunately, while the memories themselves shift in his brain, tainted and dyed and changed into fearful figments of their former selves, Five still possesses the mental integrity to _know_ they've been changed. Like watching a horror movie, the memories themselves are unpleasant, but he still knows they're fake. And that little nugget of truth he has tucked away somewhere deep in his brain is the part they can't touch, no matter how hard they try-- and oh, he knows it burns them. It gives him great satisfaction to know that. 

The Commission sees to find points that would be best infiltrated for the highest effect. Moments of weakness, areas of vulnerability, they're all subject to scrutiny and the heavy hand of their electricity, their beatings. Fights Five can remember winning turn into steady, pained replays of times he was absolutely demolished at the hands of his betters. In those he loses their faces, loses their memory altogether: The Commission's influence overtakes the reality, and turns those memories it's little more than prevalent nightmares, imprinted with pain, not sentiment.

Separation keeps him sane. Compartmentalization keeps him counting the days, keeps him decently responsive and healthy and alive as time, space, and location falls away. In those days where he would drift in a void punctuated by tremors of pain and screams he doesn't remember making, Five clutches onto his sense of self, and looks to his wall, littered by tallies he'd made with torn, shaking fingers.

It's the ability to separate that saves him. He can hear Agents speaking in soft tones, sometimes, when they think he can't hear, when even his ability to hold his head up and his eyes open has become too much. He hears them wonder about his willpower, about his tenacity, wonder just what stick will break that camel's back, and if breaking it will take down the entire animal. Five remembers because it sounds like an odd interaction to have, before changing his blood-soaked bandages and going back to work tearing him into something new.

Only when memory modification fails to work that they put him under the knife. They can't take back the powers and training they'd bestowed upon Five, but it was also more beneficial to them as a company if they didn't need to. Five was much more useful intact in every way they could control, so the surgery was mostly about experimental inhibitors, remotely-operated shocks they could apply to him, like he was a dog getting into the trash when mom and dad were away.

There's a small part of him that wants to give in just to end the torture, knowing that if he just relinquishes himself to whatever they're trying to do to him, it might be over quicker. Even if it isn't true, if he could just put on a convincing enough show-- but without knowing what they want, he couldn't act the part. Maybe they don't want him to be broken and small, maybe they _want_ him furious and feral. Maybe they want to send him after Rick. Maybe they're trying to train the animalistic loss of control that chip beamed into his brain that Rick disabled so long ago (how long ago was that?) in a way that Rick can't remove a second time.

Unless this isn't a test or an attempt to break, but rather a sentence. Maybe they're just trying to torture him because they're finally sick of him, and this is to be the rest of his life, with no light at the end at the tunnel whatsoever. It's a thought that's almost too horrible to entertain-- but he must, if only to consider his options. 

He could fight. _Who_ he's not sure, but if he could figure out how they're knocking him unconscious, if he could find a way to filter out the drugs and play unconscious until whoever comes in that straps him down is close enough to attack, if he could steal a weapon off of them and run, get far enough out of range of whatever's suppressing his abilities... 

He doesn't have long to consider his escape plan, as he's drawing another tally into the wall that indicates it's been over thirty... something. Days? Thirty times being awake, at the very least. His internal clock has been all screwed up over the last-- however long he's been here. He hears foot steps in the hall that catch his attention. It's not unusual for him to hear foot steps in the hallway of his cell, but those are usually the casual meandering of the guards. These are quick, sharp and purposeful-- the Handler?

Turning just in time to see a figure step up to the door of the cell, it takes his exhausted eyes to focus on the visage of Rick. It doesn't even seem possible, but then the door opens and he steps inside the cell, his lab coat swishing behind him, and the door closes behind him once again. He isn't covered in blood, like Five might have expected if he fought his way to him, but Rick has always been crafty. 

Of course it would make sense if this was some sort of trap, and it's exactly a trap Five takes it for at first. It would make sense to bait Five with some sort of projected memory of the man from his dreams. Layer it on top of reality, and what do you have but a highly-refined hologram that can actively hurt Five with details he doesn't even _remember_ remembering? For example, Rick's entrance into the cell immediately fills it with a scent he hadn't thought he'd latch onto again. It cuts through the sterile chlorine-and-bleach bath that he'd been drenched with over the weeks.

Smoke, oil, and the acidic tang of the chemical properties of portals, a side effect he hadn't bothered working out, simply because it wasn't an issue to most people. 

" _Not my fault you got some kind of fucked-up bloodhound nose, think of it as a-- a feature_ ," Rick had said when it'd been pointed out. Five had laughed and hadn't bothered saying something about it again: He'd come to like the smell. It usually came with something good.

Five watches the facsimile of Rick as he looks at his clipboard, tries to imagine any of those words coming from his lips now, as if he could alter whatever memory they were taking from in real time, make the clone prove its falseness by force of will, alone. When it doesn't work, when it becomes clear that Five and Rick are alone in the fluorescently-lit, eerie quiet of his cell, he mutters, " _Rick?"_

The name leaves Five's lips before he can stop it, and it sounds every bit as simpering and sad as he meant for it not to.

"Yep," Rick pops the P as he tucks the clipboard under his arm and looks across at Five with a neutral, almost bored expression. "Shirt off, lay on the ground. We got work to do."

He strides forward to the center of the cell, where there's a single drain in the middle of the concrete floor, and takes a knee as he pulls a simple metal box out of his lab coat, setting it down and opening it up so the lid blocks Five's view of what's inside. 

"What are you doing here?" Five doesn't move from his position curled in place, doesn't sit up or pull back, gives no indication that he would. He squints, trying to see the box and its contents, but both are cut off by Rick's leg. "How did you _get_ here?"

"Quit asking stupid questions and get over here," Rick says, snapping his fingers impatiently. "I don't have all fucking day, shirt off and get on the ground. Did the torture break your ears or what?"

Five leans back, finally, at that, scowling, "What's the point of this? Am I seriously supposed to believe you're actually Rick Sanchez?" He scoffs, looking over Rick's shoulder, speaking nebulously to whatever audience he's sure is watching remotely. "Cute, but you'll have to try harder, _Handler_ ," He calls, before fixing Rick with another deadpan, skeptical look, unmoving.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Rick sighs, sounding angry as he stops working on whatever he was fiddling with in the box. "We gonna do some hokey 'tell me something only Rick would know' bit? Want me to wax fucking poetic about-- about what, that time on the hill when I fucked you the first time? Or maybe the Blitz we ran on Faybel 9 where we technically got married for four hours? What's gonna get your pussy wet, old man? Get _over_ here."

Five's smile is acerbic, eyes narrowing in what was more of a glare than a squint, but with the smile it could be taken either way. "Indulge me," He says, pulling himself to sit upright with a herculean effort, smoothing his hands down his thighs, bare and cold on the tile beneath him. "Tell me why you're here first, and then I can figure out if you're the real thing. You don't look like you're here to save me." The urgency was wrong, the frenzy was wrong-- if Five didn't know better, he would think Rick was _helping_ them.

"Jesus christ you're really fucking determined to make this as difficult as possible," Rick grunts, and snaps the case shut. "Fine, I'll come to you."

Getting to his feet, he tucks the box under his arm and stalks across the room. Five shrinks back against the wall and throws a hand up, half expecting to be shocked, to be electrocuted or drugged, but Rick's hand comes down solid around the front of his shirt and drags him up off the concrete, and gives him a shake. 

"I'm here to test something you bastard and you're making my job more difficult," he grouses, and despite the fact that Five is physically larger than Rick and unquestionably stronger, in his delirious state Rick is able to easily toss him into the center of the room, right by that drain. 

Five squints at that drain, tries to pull himself back and away, scooting up on his arms, "Sorry, Rick," He says, sounding exhausted as he does and trying to kick away from the taller man, pulling himself shakily up to his feet for the first time in what feels like decades. Had he been eating? Not that he could remember, but they wouldn't let him starve. Supplements, then, or force-feeding on those days when he couldn't quite remember what was going on.

Fixing Rick with a serious look, Five's face draws down into a heavy, unpleasant frown, eyebrows pulling low over his eyes, "You're gonna have to get to talking, or nothing about this is going to be easy. You should be able to get that."

"I don't have to tell you shit," Rick says, reaching up to take Five by the wrist, and it's a testament to how weakened Five is that he's able to just yank him down to the floor without much effort, knocking the wind out of him when his back hits the ground. "You made my life _hell_ , I'm just here to return the favor."

Before Five can even gather enough breath to respond, Rick pulls something out of the case. It looks like a knife, but it has some kind of engine or motor in the handle that glows a brilliant blue-- and then he brings it down with a swing of his arm. 

Five has been subjected to agony unlike anything he'd ever experienced in the last month of his stay in this cell, but it's nothing compared to the blade that sinks through the meat of his side. It purposefully misses all of his vitals, leaving him alive with the torment of that blade searing pain through his whole body. 

"Nice," Rick gives a mean sort of smirk as he kneels up away from the weaker man to shout, "Alright, cut it!" 

A moment later, and the ever-present buzz that had filled the cell, that had become so ubiquitous with Five's experience within it that he'd completely forgotten it was even present, shuts off in an instant. Silence fills his ears instead with a ringing in between the roaring of his own pulse as it tries to keep him alive, pumping blood around the blade stuck in his side. 

Rick leans in with his elbow on his knees. "Teleportation inhibition field is cut. Try to get out."

Five's brain buzzed with a blurry cocktail of confusion, exhaustion, and drug-addled haze. Rick was showing all the signs of not being real, but his form had been solid. He'd walked like Rick, talked like Rick, moved like Rick-- but there was something wrong. Quickly, Five tries to replay the events leading up to this moment, trying to look for any indicators in his movements, his words, even flashes of his eyes.

But there had been none of that present in the man who looms over him now, one hand on the handle of the knife and twisting when Five lapses into silence for just a bit too long, snapping that free hand of his directly in front of Five's nose, "Come on. Stay with me. Make with the vanishing."

"Screw you," Five mutters tensely through grit teeth, "You're not-- Rick," He hisses, entire body clenching as he spits, for no other reason than he needed to siphon off some of the frustration in him, somehow, "I don't have to do anything you say," He laughs, bitter and dark, "Nice try, though. Really."

"We're still playing _that_ game?" Rick leans in, and grabs Five by the back of the neck-- a painfully familiar gesture, and one that contrasts the agony of the knife whirring in his side, putting off some kind of sensation in his body that feels like dying. "Do you want me to kiss you on the fucking mouth to prove it? You're pathetic. Can't admit to yourself I'm the man you think I am just cause you don't wanna believe it."

He twists the knife again, and pain rockets through Five's exhausted body. He blacks out for a second, only to be slapped awake as blood runs down his side and into that drain. 

"You shouldn't have _fucking_ killed me like you did, you crusty sack of shit. Thought you got a free pass just cause I gave you the first one as a gift and you took the second one without asking when that laser split the moon to pieces? Three strikes and you're _fucking_ out, compatriot." 

"You held the second time against me?" Five asks, sounding legitimately thrown by the admission. Of all things Rick could have supplied, a mercy killing against an otherwise slow, painful, and tedious death via bleeding out or heat burn off was not something Five had expected Rick to mention. No way was Rick that sensitive. He would have said something before now, surely.

Pain makes the space between his ears blur and buzz as he struggles to keep himself conscious. After that last twist of the knife, the intrusion had felt different. His entire body had seemed to catch and hold onto the knife instead of tearing around it, the blade slicing him just as tightly with every shift of his body.

"That's enough to work with the Commission?" Five snarls through grit teeth, putting his hand down for balance and nearly slipping when his hand hits the slick of his blood on the smooth floor. "I don't-- buy it. You _hate_ the Commission!" He snaps, his voice little more than a rough growl.

"I hate _you_ more," Rick snarls, leaning over him and switching the position of his hand to clamp over Five's neck instead of under. He doesn't completely cut off his oxygen, just grips hard enough that it's uncomfortable for him to breathe past the pressure. "You _betrayed_ me, I did _everything_ to try and get you out of here and you fucking killed me in front of that bitch! They made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

He leans in closer, and twists the knife again just to watch Five buck and shout, his grin is downright mean. "They gave me a chance for revenge, making this tech that can hold you in place, in exchange for dropping all their charges against me. How could I resist?"

Five's eyes glance at the glass, and he frowns, eyebrows knit together. Something about it still doesn't track, despite the horror beginning to sink into his heart and chest. There was something cruel and familiar about Rick's words, but Five couldn't decide what was hurting him more: If this was Rick, and he had turned traitor after all to save his own skin, or if Rick hadn't come back at all. Whether because his protocol really was broken, or... something else.

Vision going dark at the edges, Five swallows hard around the knot in his throat, darkened eyes flicking desperately around the room again, "Rick," Five mutters, and this time when he speaks it's soft, as if he didn't want anyone overhearing. "If... you're trying to tell me something, I'm not-- _fuck_ , picking up. I haven't... been thinking right, I can't see it--"

Rick laughs, a mean and cold sound. "I'm trying to tell you that whatever you thought we had, you shot to pieces in that fucking office," he sneers, putting a bit more pressure on the hand around Five's throat, cutting off his oxygen for just long enough to make him start to kick before he lets up and watches the man gasp for breath. "You're just not _listening_." 

Five shakes hair from his face, eyes and mouth twisted into a furrowed, creased scowl. His hand reaches up to grab Rick's at his throat, body heaving as every cell in his body screams for some sort of release. Release from the slurry of breathlessness burning in his chest, release from the pain in his side, still tearing him at the point of contact. Rick's words hurt, of course they do, but they're meant to. He tries not to take it personally, looking down the bridge of his nose in time to see a heavy bead of sweat track its way down the bridge from his head. He wasn't even aware he'd begun sweating from pain. 

"So you-- Are working with them to kill me-- Huh? I shot you one too many times, and--" He hisses, tipping his head back to try and gasp for cooler air, "--is it your family?" Five gasps, groaning, "Do they have-- _fuck_ \-- Summer? Did they.... hurt Morty--?"

Five had been so sure that was it. He's no stranger to Rick putting on a convincing show. That display in the office, if that's what it was, was only one example in a long list of times he's watched Rick lie so convincingly he could even fool Five if he didn't know the man as well as he did.

He'd been certain that he finally hit the nail on the head. Rick's show of force was just to get the Commission to give him his family back. That's why he hadn't hit Five anywhere more vital than the meat of his side, that's why he keeps digging his claws in with his words. He trusts Five to know him better, know him well enough to realize he's lying. He expects the flicker of softness in Rick's eyes when he finally strikes the truth, the smallest of hints that Five needs to know this is all part of a long con to get close to Five and let him get out-- maybe to turn that knife off at the last second and let him teleport out-- 

But no such flicker comes. In fact, Rick throws his head back with a cruel laugh. "You think I care about _Morty?_ The Commission can _have_ him, I'd be happy to get the little snotstain off my back. I'm not doing this because of my _family_ , you sad piece of shit-- I'm doing this because I _want_ _to_ ," he sneers, and twists the knife one more time. 

Five feels himself go cold as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped callously over his head, striking him dumb and stupid for a second as he stares up at Rick as he laughs. Despite the sear of pain making the drain beneath him glug hungrily with a fresh stream of blood, Five's eyes are stuck on Rick, rooted onto his form as if demanding answers or understanding, without being able to ask for it, himself.

Clarity comes when Five regains his facilities, and finally it seems like he's beaten, a note of understanding echoing deep in his chest, "I guess I underestimated you, Rick," He says, sounding hollow and distant, hurt and exhausted. It was surely a triumphant moment for those behind the glass, Five laying prone and bloodstained on the once-pristine floor now muddied with the copper tinge of his blood.

There's a quiet rush of power, flimsy and feeble as it collects at Five's hands. For a second, his body seems to shift and twist in place, fluttering like a butterfly in a strong breeze-- and then he solidifies, still rooted into the spot, mouth twisted in a scowl as he tries not to give Rick the satisfaction of seeing the pain his invention had wrought.

Maybe there wasn't a point in playing tough around a man who knew Five as well as Rick did. After all, who else had held Five while he'd cried for his family or fought with his own madness? Who else but Rick had seen Five at his worst and ugliest and had never once turned from him or judged him? Surely Rick had seen Five much, much worse than any singular knife wound to the gut.

But then, this wasn't his Rick. And this Rick had never seen him cry. 

"Happy?" Five hisses, his voice heavy with malice.

"Ecstatic," Rick replies. "Bring it back up!" 

The buzz of the shield coming back up around the cell sounds a moment later, confirming at last that this isn't one of Rick's cons. Five would have understood an over-the-top display of anger and petty revenge, could have granted him the injury to his side if it was the only way to let him teleport out somewhere to safety so they could regroup. Five is familiar with making sacrifices for the greater good, and he would have gladly bled for his freedom. 

But this isn't a con-- because that isn't his Rick. This Rick didn't even show a second of feeling for his family in a way Five knows he would have. Even if they hadn't kidnapped Rick's family, even if the technology was something Rick offered in the guise of a revenge scheme, he _knows_ Rick wouldn't have been able to hide the honesty in his eyes. Not when Five was the only one who could see them. 

The man who once slumped in his arms in anguish over the fact that Morty never approved of Five couldn't have done this. Five takes comfort in knowing this man isn't his Rick-- even if there's little comfort in wondering how the hell he knew so much personal information about their private moments together. He knew the Commission bore some control over his memories, but this is next level. 

Rick gives him a couple light slaps to the side of his face as he yanks the knife back out, and Five begins to bleed freely. "Take care, old timer. I'll pour one out for you later."

Five's hand quickly folds over his injury as he curls in on himself, watching the white flick of Rick's lab coat as the glass door seals seamlessly behind him, leaving him alone with his thoughts, his memories, and the painful throbbing of his pulse as blood slips between his fingers. For once, he was fortunate to be too drugged to properly feel the pain coursing through his system. Whether or intentional or just too weak for his body to process correctly, Five took the boon where he found it.

They clean him up at some point, or at least move him to a different corner of the room so they can hose off his floor, only turning the hose to him after they get the red cast out of the grout, making Five groan and curl in on himself, though he lacks the strength to do much more than turn his face away and close his eyes, squinting with pain into the wall, where he shakily adds another tally, and waits for his next torment.

The next time he wakes up, his wound is stitched and dressed, with barely a stitch of pain in his body other than the dull throb that serves as the only reminder that Rick's visit hadn't been a total fever dream. He's redressed in a clean white shirt and grey sweat pants, given a pair of non-slip white socks like a geriatric, just another insult on top of everything else. 

Expecting weeks more of isolation and torture, it surprises him then to hear footsteps coming purposefully down the hall once more-- and this time he recognizes them. The quick gait and high-pitched cliking signals the approach of none other than the Handler herself, who appears in front of his cell door with a placid smile. 

"Hello, Five," she croons, her voice only slightly muffled by the glass of his door. "You look like hell. Haven't been sleeping well?"

Five's entire body feels weirdly cold and clammy, his head throbbed. The spaces between his bones, muscles, and skin seemed to be stuffed full of cotton, slow to respond and heavy when they do, unfamiliar with their motion. He had slept on the ground, that much was certain, but he felt hazy in the way he did when he'd been put under an unnatural sleep.

Hardly surprising, given the sheer amount of work they'd had to do on him. He should probably be thankful he was 'technically' rested at all, though he didn't like the idea of what they could have done to him while he slept.

"What do you want?" Five asks with a voice as clear as mud, grating and rough as he looks up at the Handler through a low-hanging swath of hair. It was the only clear indicator of how much time had truly passed. His hair hadn't been this unruly since he'd begun at The Commission.

"To check up on you, of course. See how you're doing," the Handler says, her smile still in place, and she props a hand on her hip. "I'm coming in, don't do anything stupid."

The door opens and she steps inside the room, her nose immediately curling at the cocktail of smells. The sterile cleaner Five keeps getting scrubbed with every few days, the leftover undertone of stale blood, and the medicinal twist of the gasses they pump into the room every so often that either make him hallucinate or put him to sleep all come together into a stagnant, unpleasant funk. 

"You really look like you could use a haircut and a shower," she says as if she's talking to an old friend, and she offers him her gloved hand. "Come on now, up up. Get on your feet."

Eyes narrowed, Five glares at the proffered hand with a skeptical squint, following the arm to its owner, the Handler, looking as untouched as ever. She always looked untouched. Five had to wonder what it would take to even chip an inch of that mask off. Hopefully he would get to find out eventually, but it didn't take a genius to know that his time certainly wasn't now.

It was almost too good to be true, the offer of a real shower, some grooming, held tantalizingly close to his face. He wants to reach for her hand, he's desperate for it, but he stops halfway, unable to allow himself the comfort of her offer. Not when he knows there is always a caveat. 

"For what?" Five murmurs, voice low.

The Handler laughs. "What do you mean for _what?_ We parted on such ugly terms last time." Her hand is still outstretched, and she wiggles her fingers, but Five still doesn't reach for it. She sighs, dropping her hand. " _Really_ , Five, it doesn't have to be all this. You were bad, and you were punished for it, I shouldn't have to take you back to primary school lessons for you to put two and two together. You've served your time, and your sentence is up. It's time to get back to work."

She holds that hand out again, her smile fake and plastic and nowhere near her eyes. The rings on her fingers over the silk of her gloves click together when she wiggles them in his direction again. 

Five isn't stupid, nor naïve enough to believe he truly had gotten out of his punishment so easily. One didn't undergo weeks of torment, followed by the creation of some of weapon specifically catered to his powers, to go back in the field so fast. How would they trust him? He'd have a partner, surely. Incompetent, or hyper-vigilant. Shorter missions, less combat, less firepower, no doubt. A drained stipend for luxuries between missions, perhaps even less privacy between cases...

He lists to himself the ways this was a trap, even as he reaches to take her hand and pull himself to his feet, legs shaky beneath his body weight as Five properly feels it for the first time in a month. Five still regards The Handler distrustfully, narrowed eyes on her face as he begins patting himself down, "The Commission doesn't strike me as the kind to do time outs." Five mutters, flexing his hands, his toes, regaining feeling in long-underused limbs.

"Oh, there will be restrictions of course, but we'll get to all that in good time," the Handler says, parting her skirts and pulling out a small pistol from a holster around her thigh. From the barrel he can see a bright blue glow emanating from inside the chamber, as she points it directly at him. "I know your eggs are a little scrambled right now, but can you tell me what you think this is? Consider it a cognitive test."

Lips twitching into a frown, Five levels a dead-eyed glare down the barrel of the gun, lingering before his eyes flick up to the Handler's face again. "I'm assuming it has something to do with what Rick made for you. Stasis ammunition to prevent me from teleporting once it's embedded into my skin," He grunts, doing his best to straighten his spine. He gains more and more composure the more time he has to stand and talk, arms finally tucking behind his back.

"Very good!" she croons, like she's addressing a preschooler. "You were paying attention. That's what I love about you. Drop the field!" 

  
The buzzing cuts out a moment later, and he feels his molecules finally settle back into place inside his body where they belong, but he knows the same as her that he still has so many drugs in his system that in the time it would take him to gather himself up with enough force to teleport, she would already have fired her gun to keep him in place, and it would probably land him right back in this cell for another round of gruesome torture. No, his best bet at escape is out there, which means playing nice for now. 

The Handler begins walking without so much as looking back over her shoulder to beckon Five to follow him, bare-footed and still clad in essentially asylum pajamas. It's just another display of the power she knows she wields over him that she has faith he won't try to run-- and he doesn't. It isn't the time, and so his bare feet slap on the ground without dignity as he walks after her, leaving that fucking cell for the first time in ages. 

"You'll have a new station here at home base," the Handler says as Five catches up with her. "We'll make sure you get all cleaned up, get yourself a shave and a haircut, a new suit, and then once you're settled, we'll re-negotiate the terms of your contract, sound good?"

Five doesn't try to keep up with her quick pace. Knowing her, she had it perfectly timed to exactly how far she could walk away from him to be just within earshot, and could hurry or slow her speed to match. As such, Five moves quickly, but not enough to hurt himself, his strides long and fluid instead of short and fast to keep up. Instead, he keeps his focus on the campus around him, on her voice in front of him.

The halls were completely empty. Odd for this time of day, but perhaps not for this wing of The Commission. Re-education and reassignment wasn't a place the normal employee cared to find themselves in, not if they could help it. Five lets himself sag while he can-- before long they'll be tossed among the populace, surely. 

"Fine," He says simply, agreeing without complaint or emotion in his tone, no more invested than if she'd told him the weather for the day.

"Good!" the Handler says as she climbs onto an elevator with Five, reaching into her cleavage to pull out a key that unlocks the button panel, giving him a glimpse of how low down they are-- 90 floors deep, out of 100, beneath the ground level. The elevator begins trundling upwards, playing the girl from ipanema softly through the speakers in a truly surreal way considering the absolute hell he'd lived over the past few weeks. "You know, I really pulled for you Five. I told the Commission Board that once Rick was out of your life and stopped being such a bad influence on you, that you'd fall right back into line-- and I was right. Thank goodness, too, because there were some on the Board who thought you were more trouble than you were worth and just wanted to terminate you, call you a failed experiment and start over with a fresh face, but I rooted for you. And look at you now, docile as a kitten. I really appreciate your stick-to-it-iveness."

Without looking at her Five nods his head, mute. Five stares at the lights on the side of the elevator as they illuminate, one after another glowing as they reach nearer and nearer to the surface. Her words crawled on his skin like lice, tickling up his spine and making him itch. But still, Five holds strong, standing entirely motionless, hardly flinching. As if there was a face that could even match his, fresh or no. Five was well aware that he could never be replaced, not really, despite how the Handler might crow. His fingers clench and release, reclaiming his senses the longer he breathed fresh, undrugged air.

It would be so easy to grab her neck from behind and snap it without a breath of warning, and so unbelievably satisfying to do so, too. It's a testament to the tight leash she's manufactured just for the shape of his neck that he can't and won't-- but oh if only to dream. 

The elevator lets out on the ground floor, and suddenly Five is surrounded by people all in uniform, glamorously dressed for the 50's as always, and here he stands unwashed and undignified without shoes or a shirt that buttons, beside the Handler in all her pristine glory. There's no way her parading him around like a sick dog is an accident, she makes it well known that he's been sufficiently collared as she leads him through the halls away from the higher sector where he once had a small room to himself. 

Instead, she opens a door to a large grunt barracks, lined with three rows of bunk beds with army green canvas sheets and only a single white quilt and pillow each. There's a trunk at the foot of every bed, and a tiny bed stand underneath a small mirror on the wall, a line of sinks and showers up against the far wall where everyone is expected to just clean up in full view of everyone else, and right in the dead center of the room, poised under a light that hangs far too uncomfortably close to the mattress, lies the only unclaimed cot in the entire hall, its pillow and quilt neatly stacked by the foot of the bed. The light is probably the reason it's been unclaimed, it looks like Five would hit his knees on it every time he so much as shifts on the mattress. 

"Your new uniform is in the trunk there, and a meal voucher for the cafeteria," the Handler indicates the box at the foot of the bed. "Get yourself cleaned up and get a good night's sleep, your duties begin in the morning. Ciao!" 

She walks away, and just leaves him there, so confident is she that he's a broken man who won't try to escape. Either that or she just knows how few options he really has. At this point, Five doesn't care much to fight the illusion the Handler presented. He was sure there would be a caveat at some point, more even than the bunker, and the shitty bed, and the shitty bathroom and the shitty _meal voucher_. All of that was to be expected, if he had expected them to release him at all. Perhaps he didn't expect the damnation to reach this extent, but the Handler's capacity for sadism had yet to reach unbelievable levels. All this? Was perfectly believable. 

Five took the opportunity to scan the barracks for any indicator of time, which he eventually finds in another bunkmate's chest in the form of a small watch. He couldn't see any cameras in the cold room, but he didn't particularly need a mark on his first day because he wanted to tell time, so he glances at it only long enough to see that it's about 2 hours until the first dinner bell of the day, which means he had roughly 3 hours until people began filtering in for the night to sleep. Presumably, assuming the people in this barracks kept the same general schedule as those working upstairs.

There's a small caddy in his nightstand with what looked like military-grade soaps and shampoos, all boasting their "anti-lice" antibodies-- an ominous sign, on top of everything else. Surely the Commission wasn't even worth entry at this level. For Five it made sense. He'd had his own apartment, really, full access to the commons whenever he wasn't on missions, a stipend to spend how he wished-- a cushy existence compared to an apocalypse. 

To be fair though, this was still preferable to the apocalypse, a point Five doesn't take back even as he strips out of his thin patient's garb and confronts the showers: the water of which apparently went cold after about five minutes. But any water gently given is preferable to the hose he'd been forced to endure for the past month, and Five was no stranger to cold showers, even if it had been a few years since he'd had to tolerate one.

It takes most of his two provided razors to clip through the beard he'd grown back in isolation, but eventually he has himself groomed into some semblance of appropriate, even if his hair is a little long in the back and his mustache is just a little uneven over his lip-- but he'd had to make due with a blunted straight razor he'd extracted from the used head of the first razor he'd worn down, so any trim was a blessing.

Five's trunk is almost totally empty, what looks like a shiny white tarp covering his new uniform next to a crisp, overly starched set of sleeping clothes, a white undershirt and plain stiff gray sweatpants. The only shoes are uncomfortably unbroken-in work boots, only two pairs of socks allotted to him. 

By the time he's dressed, Five only has the energy to turn down his bed for the night before he collapses on top of it, properly exhausted. He falls asleep before he can even get a bite to eat, and if any of the old inhabitants of the barracks question why there's an old man in the least-favorite bunk, they don't wake him up to ask, and he doesn't wake up to give them the opportunity.

It's amazing he could sleep at all, given how much time he spent of the last month in some state of unconsciousness, but it's the first sleep he's gotten in weeks that comes from a normal exhaustion instead of drugs or pain or delirium. He sleeps like the dead, utterly dreamless, and his peace is only disturbed by the sound of everyone getting up the next morning. He bangs his knees on the light hanging over his bed as he expected in the process of rolling up to climb down the ladder. 

He feels like a walking corpse, tired down to his bones. Whatever painkilling effects the drugs they'd been pumping him with have all seeped out of his system, leaving him with the pain from the wound in his side, and the memory of how it got there rising to the back of his mind, trying to convince him all over again that the man who delivered it to him was the same man who desperately fought his instincts to tell Five he loved him. Five knows better. 

With no other choice for clothing, Five has no option other than to dress in his new "uniform" which is nothing but a stiff pair of canvas coveralls, worn over his sleep clothes. He didn't think they would let him back out in the field so soon, but to zip up a suit labeling him a _groundskeeper_ feels like the final insult on top of everything else. He grabs the pair of gloves afforded to him and begins the miserable trek upstairs to his new work station. 

It's remarkable, how tired he is. He knows he's experiencing withdrawals from the drug cocktail they'd had him suffering under, a slick sweat already cooling on his lower back when he makes it to the groundskeeping shed just outside the main building on the Commission campus, where inside there are a couple other people chatting, one of whom offers him a bright smile. 

"Hey, are you new?" It's a young woman with bright red hair, and she hops down off the barrel she'd been sitting on, chatting with a blonde man who looks annoyed that someone has come in to interrupt them. "I'm Penny, I can tell you everything there is to know about keeping up the campus here. What's your name?"

Five gives the shed a quick scan, immediately spotting the hedge clippers in the corner with the trowels, the spades, the shovels-- All kept under lock and key in a cage that was very obviously monitored with an old security camera that looked like it belonged in the 80s, shining red light and everything. He's aware of the exits like he's aware of any as soon as he walks into a room: Two small windows to the right, though he'd have to jump for them, a window in the back corner by the floor that looks like it leads into a garden well, and a sun window up above, propped open by a metal stick to let some air flow through the room.

"Five," He responds, finally turning to scrutinize Penny and the stranger with that same hard, glaring look. For a second he considered giving her a fake name, just to scare the Handler a little when his name didn't show up on any daily reports, but he was sure they would know he was coming.

She freezes up, glancing at the other man, who shares her expression. She puts a smile back on a moment later, looking a little bit nervous, but the man speaks over her before she has a chance to give him a tour of the place. 

"The genetic freak?" he blurts.

That deadpan expression turns to the man who had yet to introduce himself, and he's given the full, blunt force of Five's humorless gaze, long enough that he actually begins to squirm under the weight of it, before he turns back to Penny. "What am I doing here?" He says impatiently, deigning not to answer the man at all.

Penny very quickly gives him a rundown of each tool and where they're used, all under the gaze of her companion who just stares him down through the whole process. She seems to be in a hurry to get through it, which suits Five just fine because as she's talking, it occurs to him exactly what opportunity the Commission might have afforded him here without realizing. In an attempt to demean him by replacing his rifle with a shovel, they may have given him his way out. 

He'll have to be careful. He has to make his way to the edge of campus believably, he can't just book it there immediately as soon as he's on the job. One wrong step and he'll wind up back in that cell, or worse if the Handler's words about some number of the Board wanting him executed can be believed. He has only one chance at this, and he has to make it count. 

So he elects for trash pickup on this first day, and hooks a trash can onto his back, outfitting himself with a long metal pole with a stake in the tip for spearing litter, and he begins to make a track around the Commission, winding in larger and larger circles. He moves leisurely, tapping off every piece of trash he collects into the trash can on his back, walking at an easy pace. He can't look suspicious, he has to make his way organically to the outer edge, and only then can he make a break for it. 

There's an odd peace in the work. When no one else is around, it almost reminds him of the Wastes, albeit a much better temperature and a much nicer environment, aesthetically speaking: Although The Commission was far more dangerous by a landslide. Still, he had no problem spearing garbage in the quiet brightness of the day, alone with his thoughts. After so long in the pen, it was nice to have a place for him to quietly think out in the open, where he could at least feel a breeze.

Eventually, Five's work will inherently have to bring him to the world's border. Five hadn't experienced too much of The Commissions rolling green garden structure, usually too busy in his own studies or working to care much for what was going on outside; But every space had edges. If Five could find the edge between Commission grounds and the outside world, or even anything like a marker to tell him where they were on a map, the information could prove invaluable.

Running right now was still hardly in the cards. His side wasn't healed fully, he wasn't back to his normal strength with his powers or physically, his body still weak from exhaustion, frail from drug use and torment. At least the meals were still all you could eat with redemption of a voucher-- Five would make a note to take thirds if he could stomach it. Anything to regain some of the weight and strength he lost.

As Five approaches the outer ring, he spends a long time picking up trash alongside a road that looked as if it was used for golf carts. It didn't look like it was used often by any means, the grass along its edges longer, the road almost entirely obscured in shade, but Five takes his time to measure the pattern of cars, and their regularity. He took no chances.

He looks both ways carefully, and finds himself completely alone. He looks closer, checking for cameras, checking for places that even resemble spots that cameras might hide, but the Commission has never been one for hiding the fact that they're surveiling. Taking a deep breath, he steps out onto the road and heads for the open gate in the stone wall surrounding the Commission campus. 

As soon as he reaches the opening in the fence, it feels as though he walks into a solid wall, like magnets of the same poles brushing together. He can see the world beyond, but it's nothing but hills and green grass, giving him no indication of where he is whatsoever. He doesn't even know what state they're based in, what their altitude is-- nothing. His hands glow with his powers, but when he thinks of jumping out into the field he can see with his own eyes, he finds himself unable to actually make the leap. His powers flicker and fail around his hands, leaving him standing there staring out into the road winding into the distance. 

A moment later, the crunching of tires on the cobble road behind him catches his attention, and he quickly steps back off the road just as a golf cart comes trundling slowly up, carrying none other than the Handler herself. She gives Five a smile as she beeps her little horn at him from 30 feet away, as if he hadn't noticed her. 

"Oh, Five! Look at you, such a busy bee. Want a ride back to headquarters?" she crows, giving him a little wave. 

"No, thanks," Five calls with a terse nod of appreciation, skimming through the long grass with his poker like he had been so diligently doing to the rest of campus. By now it was already a learned gesture. Convenient for times like this, to slip so easily into the motion as if he'd never stopped in the first place. He nods her way, taking one step further from the road, wishing she'd just let him get on with his task, "I like the exercise," He elaborates, after a brief, halting pause.

"Oh, suit yourself," she says, folding her wrists on the steering wheel. She gives a wistful sigh as she looks up at the empty gate with a small smile. "It's incredible, isn't it?" when Five only glances up at her, she continues. "Oh, I just mean the stasis field, of course. It's a wonder of technology. It keeps the entire Commission frozen in the exact same second of 1955, indefinitely. That's why nobody can ever just happen upon us, you know, it'd be a disaster if someone just walked up to campus one day. Outside our little bubble here, the world is completely static-- and in both the previous and next second of this same day we're frozen in like a mosquito in amber, the Commission isn't there. Poof, like magic," she gives him a coy little smile. "Isn't that neat? An entire microcosm suspended in a single second."

"Is that so?" Five asks over his shoulder, tone polite as he continues to scan through the grass. He takes another step away, unable to stop himself from lingering, especially as she all too easily gives up information about The Commission. More importantly, the exact information he'd been trying to take advantage of. It made sense, though. In all the time Five had been here, he hadn't once seen it rain, or be anything other than blithely comfortable and cloudless. 

Casting a cursory glance around, Five grunts conversationally under his breath, still hoping his attitude is enough to deter Handler from hanging around, "I thought it just looked like Kansas."

"The location of the Commission is top secret, you know that," the Handler says, as if Five is being playfully cheeky. "Not even I know exactly where we are, it's not for me to know. Above my paygrade. I ought to be going now, don't be late for dinner!" 

She drops her shades back over her eyes, does a truly bad 3-point turn, and speeds off in the other direction, leaving Five there staring at the stasis field. It's no coincidence she showed up when she did, he knows that much, and it's no accident that she told him exactly what he needed to know to confirm the fact that he's trapped. He can't get outside the field because he doesn't know what time the Commission is frozen at, so he can't do the math to jump forward or backward to free himself from its stasis. 

If he could find out what time they're stuck in, then he could jump out easily. He's seen the field, he knows where to go-- but it's likely that information is highly guarded. The only way easily in or out of the campus is by briefcase, which have a preset to bring field agents back, rather than a manual setting to input. If he could somehow get his hands on a briefcase... now that's a thought. But he'll have to bide his time, first. One step at a time. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has non-explicit noncon elements in it, so be warned

Five had thought being a groundskeeper would be the most humiliating thing the Handler could do to him. Literally forcing him to work in the dirt, putting him level with the thing she clearly views him equal to. But after a couple days of it, she seems to sense that Five is actually finding peace with the work. He enjoys the solitude, his time spent with the plants; trimming the hedges, mowing the grass and collecting the stones from the paths kicked up by foot traffic into the grass, and settling them back into the roads where they belong. He doesn't have to talk to anyone or answer any questions-- and that simply won't do. 

As soon as she can tell he's actually finding comfort in his new routine just a scant week later, she changes it up. He wakes up one morning to find his groundskeeper uniform had been replaced in the middle of the night with a different colored set of coveralls, these ones navy blue instead of pale green, and gone from the chest is the label that would give him the freedom of clear-headed thought all day while he did his work. Instead the white letters spell JANITOR across his chest. 

He knows she's trying to goad him with the humiliation, as he dresses himself and zips the coveralls up to his neck. She's trying to bait him into losing his temper, into proving he isn't the subdued, mindbroken little drone she hopes he's become. He won't give her the satisfaction of _any_ excuse to toss him back into that cell. 

It's harder to hold his head up with the word janitor branded across his chest, especially as he's sent throughout the inner guts of the Campus he knew as well as the back of his hand at this point. He knows that's the point. Groundskeeper was too nice of a job for him, too welcoming and quiet. Even Penny had stopped flinching whenever Five showed up by the end of the week, having grown used to his quiet, steadfast demeanor and complete lack of any of the murderous aggression she'd been warned about.

Reporting to the Janitorial area was an entirely different beast. Deep in the depths of the campus, Five is forced to weave a convoluted web of dark, back hallways and empty corridors that don't just make him second guess himself, but make remind him just how very easy it was to get lost in the Commission. There's no sunshine on his face, no breeze on his back, just the cold, dark, emptiness of the building, followed by the occasional wave of people he had absolutely no desire to interact with.

His new manager doesn't flinch like Penny did, but does glare like her friend had. He's about Five's age, perhaps only 1/4th as mobile, and the scathing look on his face could peel paint, as he shoves a bucket and mop at Five's chest and points out a stretch of bathrooms that need cleaned. It was worse, that was for damn sure-- but the simple fact was that any job that under-utilized him was a gift, each day a blessing of quiet contemplation wrapped in demoralizing taskwork.

He spends his days mindlessly doing whatever task he's set to do, his thoughts lightyears away as he considers every single possible outcome of his various ideas of escape. He has nothing to write on, so he has to clear his mind and create a space to write in his head, the branching paths of countless probability tables constantly gone over and over in his head. 

Stealing a briefcase would be incredibly hard, the nuclear option without a doubt. There would be no way for him to get in easily, it would be a fight no matter what, so it only existed as a last resort. 

Finding out what moment the Commission is trapped in stasis would be an easy way out, but he doesn't even really know where to begin looking. His status as a janitor now does blessedly make him practically invisible to the higher-ups, especially after the first week or so after they'd all gotten their reactions to his fall from grace out of their systems, so he's able to move around the base easily, not that he's had much luck. 

The other option is to stick this out as long as possible, as long as he has to in order to get the board to sign him off on going back out in the field, but he really has no idea how long that will be. The Handler said his contract would be 're-negotiated' but it's been a little more than two weeks now and he's still gotten no word from her about a timeline. 

Not that she hasn't been hovering, because she absolutely has. In fact, she seems to have made it her personal mission to make his job as miserable as possible. She'll often intersect with his cleaning route just to purposefully make a mess-- clumsily drop a full pot of coffee, or 'accidentally' knock over a full trash can, or walk right through his path when he's waxing the hallways, forcing him to go back and buff out her footprints. Any opportunity she finds to try and put pressure on him and make him crack, she takes. 

Five's primary focus becomes recuperation, and with that in mind, it is much easier to ignore the Handler. Even as she stumbles and preens and collides her way into half of the things in the Commission that could make a mess, Five allows the work to fall into his lap with the same vague, disinterested expression. She titters about being clumsy, he offers her bland commiserations in return, she insists on helping, he cuts her off before she can so much as kneel. Around and around and around they go. 

It's less about being good than it's about being less _actively bad_. It was one thing to do as you're asked, when you're asked, while keeping the right head on your shoulders and making the choices that were best for your situation; another thing altogether to be truly broken, head empty, chest hollow. Five, for all he played the part of the latter, was very much the former, shown still in the massive portions he would consume, the steady regiment of exercises he begins to throw in before his shower as his wound heals. He always times it carefully, to make sure nobody else in his barracks catch him while he hooks his knees over the back bar of his bunk bed in order to do pullup sit ups.

The Handler assigns Five to lunch duty when she thinks he's enjoying scrubbing toilets too much, and if anything had tested him until this point, it was surely that. To be reduced to emptying trashes all day, not just by his lessers, but for his peers? It was almost too much to bear. Fellow assassins whom he'd known, whom he'd worked with and gotten along with threw trash at him as they passed, as if they'd forgotten just who they were dousing in garbage.

Or maybe they knew exactly what they were doing. Five keeps his head down as he works, unable to look many of them in the eye for his ego's sake, but hoping it comes across as embarrassed and ashamed. Knowing the Commission's ego, they'd surely take it as a win.

The worst of it came four days into his new duties when a shadow is cast over him as he's tying a full bag in one of the trash cans lining the room. He looks up and instantly feels a punch to his chest when he finds himself face to face with Rick-- _some_ version of Rick, anyway. While he knows down to his bones that this isn't his Rick, it still takes him off guard how identical he is to the man he loves and worries for still. 

"Hey _babe_ ," Rick punctuates the word with a slap to Five's ass that actually gets a couple other agents in the room giggling. "Cute coveralls. How's the spare pocket I gave you treating you?"

Five chastises himself for once more allowing himself to get comfortable in his new role, relaxed in the complete lack of responsibility. He should have seen Rick from a mile away. He should have been anywhere but here. 

Instead of verbalizing any of that, however, Five instead glances up at the few assassins who had giggled, two of them going quiet as soon as they feel Five's gaze on them. It leaves Five to turn to Rick finally. He impresses himself with his own coolness. "Not bad. The Commission puts people back together as well as they take them apart," Five offers with polite, emotionless disinterest, "Do you need something?" He asks, ignoring how much it hurts just to look at Rick's familiar profile.

"Just saying hi," Rick gives him a mean grin. "I'll see you around."

And he does, is the problem. In fact he starts seeing so much of the man all across campus that he has to wonder whether the Commission actually hired _multiple_ Ricks to play this part, he seems to be everywhere. And despite himself, every single time he catches glimpse of that blue hair or white lab coat, there's a tiny sliver of his brain that forgets itself with a moment of sheer excitement for the idea that Rick had finally found a way to come back to him, before reality catches up with him a split second later. 

It's just one more attempt to break him, and not even a subtle one at that. He'll come across Rick sitting with other assassins, asking him questions about what it's like being one of the most wanted Ricks in the multiverse, what dimension C-137 is like and so on, all so perfectly poised right as Five happens to be nearby that he can tell how painfully scripted it all is-- but hearing Rick's gravelly laughter is still enough to put a genuine icicle through his heart every time he makes a point to grind his presence into Five. 

The only thing it does accomplish is distracting him from his internal calculations. It's harder to focus on his mission when so often his thoughts are taken once more by Rick and wondering where he is, if he's safe, if his _family_ is safe. It's getting harder and harder to shove into a dark corner of his mind where he plans to address it eventually, harder and harder to focus his attention where it actually needs to be in order to get him to freedom. Every time this impostor Rick makes himself known, the fear comes back in full force. 

It does occur to him that there's a possibility this is his Rick who has been somehow mind controlled or brainwashed, but the chance is slim. Rick would sooner bite through his own tongue and drown in the blood than allow himself to be broken by the Commission. The only exception is if they have his family-- but he trusts Rick's ability to fend for himself more than anyone in the known multiverse. If anyone was capable of keeping his family safe, it would be Rick. 

Five isn't sure if this subservient life is to be his sentence from then on, but as more time passes, he begins to settle into a rhythm that brings him a little bit of comfort, at least. Despite the torment of the copy of his lover and the agony of humiliation in front of his peers, there's anonymity in his work, and there is certainly pride to be had in an easy few weeks of menial labor, while he still got to enjoy most of the perks he appreciated about The Commission. 

Although he no longer had access to the library, Five's tasks would lead him there on occasion, which would always end with him stealing a book (or three) to read after everyone else in the barracks had long since gone back to sleep, doing his best not to bang his knees on the light. A low-tier position meant he was given the final slot for lunch, when the food had practically been cooking all day and the lunch ladies were too tired to bother with service-- but Five working the cafeteria meant they fed him with the rest of the lunch staff, a private buffet in the back room. 

It was certainly a different way of operating within The Commission, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant-- company excluded. Five's company was worse than ever, as proved by The Handler calling him into her office over lunch one day to clean up after her guests, only to find Rick goddamn Sanchez and the Handler indulging in what looked like a frankly preposterous meal, the cloying, repulsive scent of cigar smoke hanging in the air.

Rick gives him the butt of his cigar "as a treat" with a wink as he's left to clean up their mess right in front of them, while the two of them drop trash on the ground just to watch Five stoop to pick it up. A master of his reactions, he's able to keep a completely neutral expression while they torment him, despite the way his heart is pounding. 

He feels like a child bullied on the playground, for how it feels that they can actually manage to get to him. He should be used to this Rick's presence by now, desensitized to his existence, and yet every jab and jeer and sneer reminds him of his own Rick, and the way he would handle him softly when it was just the two of them and there was no one around to see either of them be vulnerable. It gives him pleasure to think of how furious his own Rick would be with this pretender, how badly he would kill him. 

It becomes a pattern then, of her calling him to her office to clean up after lunch every few days, and every time she does, she seems to have made it a point to have a more and more outrageously messy meal. Crab, lobster and all other types of shellfish, pistachios for a snack, loose corn or peas-- anything that's guaranteed to give him a harder time cleaning up, and gives her all the more pleasure to drop around the place while he's cleaning just to make him pick it up while she watches. 

It reminded Five very much of a spoiled brat having a tantrum. Reginald would often compare he and his siblings to those images of righteously indignant toddlers throwing food and slamming their feet, particularly when they were being intentionally contentious. It was never exactly true, the Hargreeves brood far too scared of their father figure to even consider such a wild display of fury. They all acted out in their way, but never quite like this.

However, because of that, it's relatively easy for Five to package this away, too. His long hours spent under their heels became little more than background noise, even as their jeers turned personal, their words aimed to hurt his soul, to cut him down. If sharing a barracks with a bunch of young, fit 20-somethings wasn't enough to make him self conscious, he could handle a poor excuse for a Rick and a miserable shell of a woman. 

In truth, the worst part about those long lunches were how much they actually hurt his back. Without a decent bed to sleep in, recovery was slower, and benching down and standing back up began to wear on him more than he'd like to admit. It reminded him how very old he was, how very much he'd gone through all these years. Without Rick-- the _real_ Rick-- Five's mind had thrown sharp focus onto how very alone Five truly was. Without a friend to talk to or a soul to commiserate with, his days were endless.

Depending on the day, Five would say he'd preferred the torture to the routine. 

It seemed endless. Wake up, eat, clean, be ridiculed, clean, eat, sleep. The Commission didn't have seasons, it didn't have holidays. The weather was planned and ran on a cycle that it had always run on, a pattern Five had learned within one year of the halls. Once his side began to feel better, Five could move on to his other plans properly: Finding weapons, finding a briefcase, and getting home. The rest could be dealt with in time, but he couldn't keep wasting days.

But the Handler, in her infinite cruelty, found a way to shake up that routine in a new way that would shake Five by his foundation, and break his concentration yet again. She's gotten to be remarkably good at that, over the last couple of months, and it's worse to know how much pride she must take in the breaking. There are some days where he thinks his act of being a broken man isn't as much an act as he might like to believe. 

The next time she calls him into her office, Rick isn't there. She's alone, and there isn't a mess to clean up, it's just the two of them in the space surrounded by books and files and paraphernalia she's picked up over the years in her time travel. He feels immediately at unease just being alone in a room with her, expecting her to spring some new piece of information on him, or devise a new way to make him suffer. Unfortunately he's thinking in terms of physical pain, his mind so far away from the reality of her intentions that she manages to genuinely rattle him.

It's the first time she coerces him into having sex with her, but it won't be the last. And he knows he has no choice but to comply. Blinders on the horse, it's all for the mission. He can't jeopardize his act now, not for this. Not even as it makes his stomach turn. 

That night, Five gives himself the leniency to shorten his day, at the risk of being yelled at by his supervisor. It's a safe bet the man won't check his work, or even notice Five had taken off, and he would need the time to stand under the scalding hot showerhead while there was still hot water to spare.

His skin burned, and not from the water as he greedily uses up all of the heater's capacity before his fellow barracksmen have a chance to come back for their nightly showers. If they understood even a fraction of the storm of feelings raging inside of him, they would grant him the shower themselves. He feels sick with guilt, pushed to the very edge of his tether. There was nothing else the Handler could take from him. She'd taken his heart, his humanity, his dignity, his love, and now his fucking DNA. Five had nothing left to give. 

While he'd spent many nights trying to fall asleep to someone, somewhere in the barracks crying themselves to sleep, tonight it would be him. Not a single tear escapes, but as he fights with the fucking light banging into his knees, he's gripped so tightly with agony over what he'd just been made to do that he doesn't get a wink of sleep the whole night. 

And then the next morning she calls him right back to her office to do it again. 

It's a new addition to Five's hideous routine, and he finds himself longing for the days when Rick was invited to lunch instead, for them to poke and prod at him like two boys with sticks against a kitten found on the side of the road. Five never thought he would be on the _kitten_ side of any analogy, but his mind was entirely focused on escape, driven blind by purpose.

In many ways, it was his last bastion. The Handler would send him off wet and rode hard, exhausted and debauched, filthy with bruises and scratches from her nails across his neck, his chest, his back. His body ached, and the harder he tried to clamp down on his arousal to make it simply not happen, the more it seemed to hurt when it did, anyway. She interrupted him in the middle of cleaning a bathroom once to command Five to his knees on the ground didn't let him pull away from her until he had nearly blacked out from his duties.

How many times had he considered grabbing the pistol from the Handler's little shelf of souvenirs? How many times had he considered the grenades, the c4 mine? How many times had he considered grabbing one of the many rifles that decoratively line the grand business rooms of The Commission? But who was to say if the ammunition was live? Who was to say if Five would be walking into a fight unarmed and underprepared? 

Five had not come this far to die, and he would kill _himself_ before going back into that cell. So it became a matter of timing. 

He grit his jaw through the goading, bit his tongue through the demeaning demands of his once-peers. His face became no more moveable than a stone against a current, to the point where questions were raised about his humanity, his sanity, mocking theories of lobotomies thrown at his back as he turns the corner. It doesn't matter. They don't matter. The Commission has only been useful for one thing, and that was getting home. He would get home.

It becomes so routine to be called to her office, that he very nearly starts undressing on the way there some days, just to make it go faster by the time he arrives-- but when he's summoned one particularly innocuous Thursday to find the Handler isn't alone, he's glad he didn't. She's accompanied by none other than AJ himself, sitting imperiously in an armchair across from her desk, swimming around in his bowl atop his construct. 

"Ah, Number Five," he says, standing up from the chair when the man approaches, looking tired and resigned. "Do you have a moment?"

It's insulting to be asked. As if Five has any autonomy within the Commission power structure anymore. The Handler smirking like a cat from behind AJ's shoulder only digs in that fact all the worse, as she leans back against her desk and crosses her feet at the ankles. 

It makes bile rise in his throat, but Five manages to swallow his pride just long enough to pop out a politely interested, "Of course, Mr. Carmichael." He tucks his hands behind his back, standing at attention. He doesn't bother glancing at the Handler, doesn't bother acknowledging her in any way. Carmichael was _her_ boss, after all. Technically deflecting to him was protocol. And any excuse not to look at her was a good one, in his book.

"Excellent," AJ clasps his hands politely in front of him. "I've been in contact with the board, and we're all _very_ impressed with your growth over the past two months. To see you transform from the rulebreaking scoundrel of a couple months ago into the well-mannered, civil servant you are today is nothing short of miraculous, and you should be very proud of your accomplishments."

He's talking to him like he's praising an unruly junior-high problem student for not graffitiing the gymnasium for two months in a row, patronizing and self-important, and the Handler's grin behind him only grows.

Five has to hide the twitching scowl that wanted to tighten over his face. He could feel it almost pinching at his eyes, almost twisting onto a face. It takes an iron grip to keep his face blank, but it's not without considerable effort. If only he could tell Carmichael about his accomplishments, or even The Handlers. He wondered if it'd be worth it to throw her under the bus, if he would even care about the disgusting abuse of lesser employees.

But considering they all probably wanted him dead, it was pretty safe to assume they weren't going to really give a shit about possible HR violations. A shame. Seeing the Handler demoted would be almost as good as seeing her dead. He'd just have to take what he could get.

"It's always nice to be recognized. I know now my priorities were all wrong. To be given an opportunity to rectify that is a relief," He says, instead of the hundreds of things he wants to say. "Is there something more I should be doing?" Five adds, because he's sure that's what this is about. He couldn't have it easy for one week, after all.

"Honestly, you've been a model employee," AJ says. "Which is why we're strongly considering your reinstatement to the field." He pauses just long enough to wait for a mustache twitch or eyebrow raise from Five, any indication of an emotional response to this announcement, but none comes. So he clears his throat and continues. "However, there's the subject of ramifications. We can't just release you back out into the wild unchecked, as I'm sure you understand. The last time you were given free run of the place you let a dangerous madman breach our defenses, brainwash you, and put our employees in danger."

He says all this, as if Five hadn't already been massively punished. But apparently, the torture didn't count as punishment. That was just the re-education process, after all. 

Again, Five has to fight every nerve and cell in his body to keep his face blank. He can see the scrutinizing way AJ stared at him, one big eye practically pressed against the glass of his bowl. Fortunately, he's had a lot of practice, even more, now. Instead, he only nods, deftly understanding, "Of course, Mr. Carmichael. I would expect nothing less," And he hadn't. In fact, the idea that he was allowed back onto the field at all had his heart skipping a beat.

It was enough to completely negate the sour mood he'd had earlier, Five's excitement barely contained by a small raise of his chin, just enough to indicate polite curiosity, "I'm flattered you've grown to trust me, Sir. I am excited to prove my loyalty to the Commission," Five's voice is entirely deadpan. Excited was an understatement.

AJ just holds his hand out beside him, and the Handler moves without having to be addressed directly, passing a folder off to him from her desk, which he opens and starts flipping through. "The subject of your multiple infractions was a contentious topic with the Board," he says, glancing up at Five every few seconds to try and read his expression, but Five gives him absolutely nothing to work with. "We had a lot of calculations to run. The time you wasted with Sanchez that you could have been working, the time you spent plotting, not to mention the damages themselves and the deduction from wages, we ultimately came to the conclusion that in order to make up for all the damages and make reparations, 25 additional years would be added to your contract."

He snaps the file shut and looks up at Five expectantly. "Any questions?"

Five's blood runs cold at that number. 25 years. 25 _years_. Who even knew if he'd be alive naturally for 25 years? Of course they'd outfit him with the age suppression augmentation. They'd tried to sell it to him when he'd first arrived, hoping he'd fall in love with the work and forget his pipe dream of finding his family: for all the good that had done them. Five forces his breaths to an even measure, absolutely refusing to give them any reason to believe he might be feeling anything at all. The only way they were having this conversation was if he didn't feel anything. Five knew that. His walls were up. 

"Upon completion of the 25 years, would the opportunity to renew be on the table, or is the contract now finite?" Five says, as if he was going to stay. 

It's a fucking joke, but it has the desired effect at least, when AJ leans back slightly in surprise. "Of course we'd give you the opportunity to renew," he says, clasping his hands in front of him again. "We could even extend the contract _now_ if you think you're going to want to stay on with us for longer. We'll have to get you outfitted with an anti-aging augmentation, but that shouldn't take very long."

"I have no problem proving my contrition before negotiating a longer term," Five deadpans professionally to AJ with a courteous nod of his head. If he could go back and thank every last bastard who'd spent the last two months making his life hell, he would. He thought he had a handle on his emotions before, raised under Reginald Hargreeves: now he was Fort fucking Knox.

"And don't worry if your mind starts to fail after so many years," the Handler supplies haughtily. "We can always pilot you remotely, if you start to lose your mental faculties."

Only after he addresses Carmichael does Five even dignify the Handler with a look, inclining his head thoughtfully once more to the woman who he wished so much malice on, "Should I lose control of my own autonomy, I can't imagine I'd mind," Five instead says almost _amicably_.

The Handler looks absolutey overjoyed, as if she personally could lay claim to all the emotional deadening of Five's humanity and compasasion, as if she alone were responsible for the model employee standing in front of them, not even blinking an eye at the idea of being given an extra 25 years, whereas before he was practically climbing the walls at a measley five years in between him and his goal. 

Still, she can't help but push that final inch. She has to, just to be sure. 

"And what about your family?" she asks. "Forgive my nosiness, it's just that suddenly you're talking about a permanent contract. What happened to wanting to see them again?"

It was always going to come down to his family. Not surprised the Handler raised the concern, Five regards her with the same deadpan, even expression he'd held throughout the rest of the interview, his emotion summarized by one, short shrug. "As I said, my priorities have shifted. Sorry for my bluntness, but I'm a different man," Five apologizes like he's delivering bad news, as if a different man wasn't what they wanted all along. He's simply giving them what they wanted, disgusting as it was.

"I've come to realize my interference in the timeline can't stop the inevitable, only end in my death alongside them. Best case scenario, I die next to my siblings. Or," Five speaks mechanically, matter-of-fact, "There's a reason I wasn't killed beside them in the first place," At that he actually looks Handler in the eye, repeating her words almost verbatim, "Perhaps I was meant for something more."

The Handler sighs almost dreamily at his response, a hand going to her chest and smug smile spreading across her face. 

"Well, I think that's all I need to hear," AJ says, reaching into his blazer pocket, and producing a key with a tag hanging off of it, holding it out to Five. "Pack up your bunk in the barracks, you're moving to room 27C. It's not as ritzy as your last one, but you'll work your way back up. A suit has already been provided for you in your room, but you won't be given any weapons until you go out in the field, until you have a chance to prove your loyalty. I'm sure you understand." 

Ritzy, he says, as if Five's last room wasn't a closet big enough for a cot, a chair and a dresser, with a standing wetroom without a door that soaked the sink and toilet when he used the curtainless, glassless shower. But at this point, anything that gives him peace from the grey, homogenous herd of disaffected low-ranking commission agents is a blessing.

Five takes the key without comment, looking down at the tag considerably before looking back up at AJ and the Handler. He just needed this to be over. He needed them to stop looking at him for five seconds. He felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin. "Should I finish my work day before moving my belongings, or would you prefer I turn over my place in the barracks before the others are released for the day?" Five asks. It didn't matter to him one way or the other, but looking like he wanted to do his work could only reflect well on him, even if he had no intention of going back to scrubbing toilets after this conversation was over.

"I think you've done enough," AJ responds amiably, nodding his fishbowl in Five's direction. "You can turn your jumpsuit in with your supervisor and make your way to your new room to get settled. Enjoy the rest of this day off, we'll be sending you out into the field first thing in the morning."

He takes his leave then, walking out and leaving the Handler there with Five, who also turns to go, but he's stopped by a clawed hand on his shoulder, and the presence of the Handler stepping up behind him, so close he can feel her breasts against his back, and then her lips against the shell of his ear. 

"I can't wait to see you in the suit again," she says, her voice breathy in his ear as she reaches down for a handful of his ass and squeezes. "They cut such a dashing figure on you, unlike this shapeless jumpsuit."

Five feels his jaw clench, his entire body turning over with something akin to revulsion at the closeness of her, even as he knew it was pointless to argue or contest. Either of those would prove only to negate what he'd just white-knuckled through. Fortunately, his tenseness is often taken for lust, and if the way she was practically rubbing herself on him was any indication, she certainly assumed it was.

So he turns in her arms, facing the Handler dead-on, hand reaching to slip under her skirt without warning. There's no kindness in the way he grabs her ass in response, fingers kneading bruisingly into the soft muscle there. His voice is soft. "I can't help but feel I owe you thanks for this opportunity," He murmurs curiously, breath a purr in his throat as he invades her space, "I won't forget it." That, at least, was a promise Five sounded like he would keep.

She lets him go after that without much more fanfare, and though he'd been prepared to grit his teeth through another gut-churning coupling, he has the decency to act disappointed when she turns him away to get her work done for the day. He doesn't even rush out of her office, or rush down to the barracks. He takes his time packing up the few things he owns-- a simple, cheap watch, a booklet of meal vouchers that he won't even technically need anymore, and a couple pairs of socks he'd broken in comfortably. Honestly, being told to "pack up" was insulting in itself, but he still doesn't rush as he leaves the communal barracks for the last time.

The haste with which he tears out of his jumpsuit the instant he's in his new room is practically feral, however. He nearly hurts himself he rips it off so quickly, and tosses it aside in order to put on a fresh, crisp suit for the first time in weeks. It fits him perfectly, tailored to his exact measurements, in a handsome dark chocolate brown. It feels like finally putting on his skin for the first time in weeks, and knowing he's going to go out in the field tomorrow morning only makes it all the sweeter when he takes a lap through the Commission just to let everyone see him back in his field agent uniform once more. 

He can afford just a _bit_ of peacocking at this point. Besides, even if he's maintaining an aura of total emotionlessness about the promotion, he knows that they know that there's an objective pride that should come with reclaiming his rank that would be more suspect if he didn't capitalize on. And so he does, if only to pass the time until he's sent outside of these walls for the first time in eons. 

It's easy to forget how boring the Commission was when living in the poorly-lit underbelly. Even getting meals whenever he wanted was a blessing in itself, and he has to remind himself to keep the acerbic comments to a minimum as he is served food instead of serving it, fresh and hot, too. Five sits by himself because at least that isn't too far a stray from his usual, and then goes back to enjoying the rest of his given day off: specifically patrolling the grounds again, one last time looking for weak links in the fence and finding none.

Ultimately, he needn't have gloated. Although morning came and he was given a directive, the job was a microscopic thing, little more than grunt work supplied to the least-talented field operator. Five wasn't even given an actual briefcase to take with him, but was instead given a communal launch code for the operation, which he submitted along with the 10 others who teleported into the field with him.

That day he spent 8 hours under the watchful eyes of Commission analysts at an eliminations scene that looked more akin to a Jackson Pollock than anything they could claim. Five was placed on duty of rounding up anyone who might have seen anything. He wasn't even given a gun for the venture, but rather a whistle-- He was to blow it if he felt threatened, like a child in school.

Five should have figured they wouldn't let him out of Commission space so quickly, and what he'd hoped was a new chapter of trust ultimately ended up being mostly more of the same: Except this job was exclusively under the Handler's eager gaze, a fact she quite frequently liked to show off by arriving on scenes and demanding Five's time, putting him behind and making his day longer by extension. Unlike the janitor position, his day ended when the work was done, not when the clock told him.

He steps not a toe out of line, strays not a hair out of place, and is rewarded in kind. Gradually his details become less and less tiresome and more and more catered to his actual skills, with fewer people accompanying him and more freedoms. He still isn't given a briefcase and a weapon at the same time, one or the other provided to him at a time, but he doesn't question it or complain. He knows the time will come. 

Every shred of free time is spent locked up in his room, which he knows full well has a camera in it now ever since his history with Rick became common knowledge, and so he got himself a book of sudoku to masquerade Vanya's book within like a child hiding porn in a textbook, going over and over and over his math to make sure he's ready for when the time comes that he gets his first solo mission. All he needs is the one, and he'll be home free. It's just a matter of biding his time until then. That's what all of this has been, and he's not about to trip over the finish line now, when he's so close. 

His thoughts stray to Rick often. Where he's gone, whether he wonders about what became of Five, whether he's looking for him. He hasn't had the freedom to even attempt sending a message to Rick in the field, nor an idea of how to actually accomplish such a feat in the first place-- but at this point, he knows Rick will understand. When his family is safe and the world rescued from perdition, Rick will understand why he had to put his mission first. At least, he has to hope. 

And it's not like Rick doesn't understand, but it has been driving him _insane_. 

On the other side of the multiverse, things have been strained in the Smith family household. Rick has been holed up in his lab for weeks now, barely leaving long enough to shower or eat or use the bathroom. He dragged his cot into the garage weeks ago in order to collapse for a couple hours at a time, pees in bottles half the time until he runs out, and then has Morty empty them out so he can reuse them because for once, he isn't heavily drinking. 

And that's been perhaps the most concerning thing, for his family. The one thing that has always been a comfortable constant about Rick's presence in the family has been his drinking habit. The fact that he's almost completely stopped except for the odd nightcap just to knock him out long enough for a nap, is _weird_. It shouldn't be more concerning that an alcoholic isn't drinking than that he is, but knowing Rick like his family does (which isn't nearly as well as most of them would like to think) the fact that he's focused so heavily on something that he hasn't been numbing himself is worrying to watch. 

Especially since all he's been doing is staring at an array of screens that he's covered almost every wall in the garage with, which all show blips of light strobing across a global map. They don't know what he's looking at, he hasn't taken the time to explain and any time Morty tried to question him about it, Rick would be so zoned out looking at the readouts of whatever information he's gathering that he wouldn't even respond. 

Morty would bring him meals just to clean up the untouched remains of the previous one, occasionally with a bite or two taken out of it, but it's clear that whatever Rick's dealing with has his entire attention without exception. 

He can't afford to look away for a moment. Even sleeping when he does feels like agony, and never lasts very long. The process of tracking every instance of every version of Five using his powers across every dimension he exists within is exhausting, and he's been doing it tirelessly for nine weeks at this point. He doesn't take Morty on adventures, he doesn't attend family dinners or TV nights, he just sits on his stool and stares and stares and stares. 

Rick knows eventually there's going to be an outlier. There's going to be an instance of Five's powers somewhere it's not supposed to be. He has the entirety of Five's home string of dimensions laid out in an expansive grid, all the places where it would make sense for Five's powers to be used. Alternate versions of him teleporting around, jumping spacially or through time, but never through dimension. There's only one Five who can jump through dimensions using the Commission's briefcase, and he knows eventually he's going to get a ping from some random dimension in fuckall nowhere that will let him know Five is back out in the field and using his abilities to do his job. 

He just has to wait for that moment, as long as it takes. 

Morty had tried to talk some sense into him, even Summer and Beth had tried their hands, thinking Rick might respond more to one of the girls in his life asking him for anything-- usually it was a pretty good bet Rick would at least try to help them if he could. But he's so rooted to the screens, there's nothing big enough to tear him away.

Morty eventually manages to get him to eat, but only after nagging for hours and asking every annoying question under the sun. Even when he does get answers out of Rick finally, after almost two full months of obsessive charting and observation, it's nothing more than a confirmation of a fact Morty already knew: there was nothing in the goddamn multiverse that mattered more to Rick in this moment then the information being gathered. Unless a nuclear winter was imminent, or the Federation was actively banging down their door, Rick wasn't to be disturbed or pestered about anything. As far as he was concerned, the Smith family could just do without him for now.

It was a scary thought for Morty, who thought he could bet money on being the #1 priority in Rick's life. Apparently not. 

Apparently there was someone more important than Rick's immediate family's petty complaints, more important than his addictions or his gluttonous habits, or even his egotistical acquisition of funds. It didn't take a genius Morty to realize just who that might be-- 

Number Five. The sour-faced, dry-toned old guy who'd nearly short Morty on his birthday. Number Five, the weird old guy that hit on his mom at dinner in front of his dad, and offered his sister liquor. The goddamn asshole who was taking his grandpa away from him. There was nothing Morty could do, nothing Morty could say that would convince Rick of the futility of his actions-- and Morty did say everything he could, anything in the name of Rick's health.

There was a very real part of Morty that hopes the computers never light up with inter-dimensional activity. After months of Rick wasting away, it would be nice if his grandpa could move on. But unfortunately, after weeks upon weeks of nothing abnormal in the systems, they all begin to light up at once. A piercing shriek cuts through the otherwise comfortable silence of the Smith household, making Morty yank his hand out of his pants like he was burnt, hands raising like he was under arrest.

Morty catches himself not two seconds later and hastily tucks himself away and clears his throat, glad no one had seen his instinctive reaction. The alarm had cut off shortly after it had begun, but the sound was still imprinted in Morty's head, loud enough that it must have been piped in through every bedroom, as if Rick seriously thought there was a chance he could miss it. 

Trudging downstairs, back down to the dingy, dimly-lit garage, Morty knocks twice before opening the door, poking his nose in to squint at Rick, hunched over the computers, "Rick," He says slowly, "Did...did you, uh, did something happen?" He asks uncertainly, hesitantly, not sure if Rick would even bother to acknowledge Morty's existence. Not like he had for the last few months.

"I fucking _found him_ ," Rick says as he stands up from his desk. He looks wild, unwashed, his hair is a mess, he's been wearing the same shirt for weeks, and his cheeks are thick with a stubble he hasn't bothered shaving in ages. His bloodshot eyes and dark circles only add to his crazed appearance as he unearths his untouched portal gun from beneath the garbage it had been buried under. "I knew he was too clever to be gone for good. I fucking _knew_ he'd make it out."

He throws open a cabinet and starts to arm himself, putting on a fresh lab coat and running a hand through his hair to try and make himself a little more presentable, strapping a holster under his arms so he can fit a gun against his back. 

"Hang- hang on, Rick, don't you think it might not be the best idea to just go-go storming somewhere you don't know with-with guns blazing?" Morty desperately surges forward into the room, hands outstretched, "What if he's not in a place where he can keep you safe? Y-you know, since you've been getting messed up in all that stuff with the Commission, you keep _dying_. I-It can't be economical," it's a faint argument at best, but he's desperate not to have Rick leave because at this point? He's not entirely sure Rick would come back. "Wh-what's your plan, Rick?"

"Find him and get the fuck out," Rick says, loading a handgun and sticking the barrel down the back of his pants, hidden under his lab coat. "Everything else I'll just make up as I go."

"Find him? Like-- like--?" Morty looks up at the screen, slowly filling up with coordinates and times, Five beginning to jump outside his expected dimension string, and jump a lot. He had apparently made moves, and was making a lot of them. "Didn't you say t-those Commission guys had him? What if something happened?"

"Something _already_ happened, Morty," Rick says angrily as he fits a grenade belt around his hip, and sticks a couple flasks of something in his pockets. "Last time I was a the Commission, I almost got him killed, and I'm not gonna let them have him a second time. Hell or high fucking water, I'm taking Five with me and we're blowing this popsicle stand." 

He latches a watch around his wrist and syncs it to the screens in his garage, nodding. "Okay. He's in Dallas Texas, 1963, dimension G-359. Easy. You coming?"

"Jesus christ Rick, _yeah_ , man-- yeah, I'm coming," He mutters, quickly grabbing his shoes at the garage door, shutting it tightly behind him as he hastily yanks his sneakers on. At least he was going to be a part of the rescue mission, even if it boiled his blood to do so. Morty didn't squint too hard at why that might have been.

Rick tunes his portal gun to the exact coordinates, time and date of the last time Five used his powers, takes a deep breath, and fires it into the wall. He climbs through first, with Morty following him seconds later. 

They step out into a parking lot of all places, where Rick very quickly takes stock of the situation. It's broad daylight, and there are people screaming a short distance away-- a lot of people, in fact. There's a fence in front of them, with the commission briefcase laying against it, alongside Five's rifle, both of which are just left there in the open, with no sign of the man. 

And in front of them, shimmering in the air are the last, glittering blue remnants of a rift closing. It all hits Rick at once, the realization that he's too late-- and just seconds too late. If he hadn't wasted time talking to Morty, maybe he could have gotten here in time. 

"FUCK!" he starts pacing back and forth, panting like a bull through his nose. He could go back in time, but he knows that there's only one place in the multiverse that Five could open a rift to, and that's his home dimension, the one he's tied to body and soul. Which means he finally made it home, he _finally_ accomplished his mission, and going back in time to interfere with that could cost Five his ticket home. That's the only thing he's been after for his entire life, Rick couldn't take that from him-- but he also doesn't know how to follow him. Grief lands like an anvil in his chest. 

Morty looks around, head snapping this way and that, "What-- Where is he?" He asks stupidly, not quite getting the big issue, not understanding where Five could be, "We can just follow him, right? Let's just go--" Morty gestures to the spot where the warping blue of Five's powers had just vanished, leaving only barren, beige sky in its place.

"I _can't_ Morty!" Rick says, stopping in his tracks as he realizes he just, for the first time ever, admitted something that he can't do to Morty. His face crumples into an expression of anger and agony and he whips around to fire a laser pistol at a car, sending it up in flames just for the pleasure of watching it burn, before he drops down to his knees on the asphalt and digs his hands into his hair. 

"Hey..." Morty starts reaching out to Rick, but hesitates before actually touching him.

There are sirens in the distance, Morty can hear them even now but they still sound too far away to matter-- Although the thick column of smoke was sure to draw attention, Morty doubted anyone or anything in the 1960s was a threat to them getting the heck out of there. It was Rick who looked immobile, rooted to the ground in agony. 

Morty tries to be brave again. This time, his hand reaches Rick's shoulder, "S-Sure you can, Rick, y-you just gotta go back and recalibrate the machine or something, right? If you tracked him this far, h-he can't just disappear..." He mutters, softly.

"That _machine_ tracked Five's powers, Morty!" Rick grabs Morty by the front of his shirt, shaking him roughly. "You know who uses Five's powers a lot, Morty? Five! And you know where Five lives? In his fucking dimension string! Which is where he just _went_ , and I don't know where that is! I can't track him there because that's where _every_ version of Five lives and uses his powers! It'd be like looking for a needle in a stack of fucking needles! The only reason I could track him here is because it's outside of his dimension string, and he's the only who ever left his string but now that he's gone back--" 

He lets go of Morty's shirt, landing on his hands on the asphalt instead, utterly defeated. 

Seeing Rick like this is honestly just as bad as seeing him hyperfixated and malnourished, worse than seeing him waste away in the glow of dozens of screens, worse than seeing him reduce to some shell of himself, lost looking for some part of himself he never meant to give away. Morty flinches at Rick's anger, at the way his shoulders collapse, his body sagged liked the weight of the entire world was on his shoulders. He stares at him, aghast and just as lost as Rick was. He's not the smart one of the two. If anyone was going to concoct schemes or make plans, it was Rick-- So why was Morty even trying? 

Maybe because trying was better than nothing, and anything was better than how Rick was acting in this instant. 

"W-Well don't you have his hair in a brush or something?" He asks desperately, "You're the one who had a whole freaking life with him, Rick, you're saying you don't have any of his DNA anywhere you could track?" The sirens were getting closer, and Morty still paid them no mind.

" _No_ I don't have his fucking DNA!" Rick shouts it like the idea is offensive, as if he hadn't thought of that. He _could_ go back in time to find Five at some point in the timeline and get his blood or hair or something and figure out what to do from there, but any single thing he could do in their past could had ripple effects that alter the timeline and somehow prevent Five from making it back home like he just did. And that, ultimately, is the final goal. The one thing Rick could never risk, is Five getting back to his family, no matter how badly he wanted to find him. 

And it's not like he could just go to a different Five in a different timeline and get his DNA. The strands would be different across the multiverse, it would only lead him right back to the version of Five he used in the first place. It's absolutely hopeless, there's no way he could get ahold of Five's DNA in a way that didn't risk altering the timeline. If there was, it would have already happened. 

It hits him like a lightning bolt, then. He feels a shiver go all the way down his back, tingling unpleasantly in his spine as he remembers that weird fucking Rick who assaulted him in the motel bathroom he shared with Five. A Rick who looked like a fucking psycho, like he does right now with his wild unkempt hair and stubble, with his crazy tired eyes and manic overexhaustion. The Rick who scrubbed under his nails before disappearing, nails that had just raked blood and skin cells under them from Five's back. 

He _had_ already done it. There was a chance to find him. He leaps to his feet and opens a portal without a word, already pulling out a shitty packet of half-used gas station tissues from one of his interior pockets without a word to Morty. He startles the younger version of himself, who scrambles back with a shout of surprise at his sudden appearance, but he doesn't have time to explain, and he already knows that he isn't going to attack himself because _he_ didn't attack himself. He grabs his younger self by the wrist and yanks it forward, jamming a tissue under his nail until it comes back with blood on the fibers, and then vanishes the way he came, to a surprise Morty still standing in the parking lot. 

"Let's go," he grabs Morty by the wrist and fires a portal back home, dragging him back through just as police arrive on the scene to find a strange briefcase, an abandoned rifle, and a smoldering car. 

Morty plants his feet back on the ground in their own garage with a wave of relief, the sudden bout of action from his grandpa encouraging as he steps back to watch Rick's sudden flurry of activity with wide eyes. Hs fiddles with his fingers, shifting and shuffling on his feet, not wanting to get in the way but not daring to leave, in case Rick should need anything at all.

A lull in activity, scrapings taken from tissue and placed into centrifuges, vials spinning rapidly with a dull whir, gives Morty the opportunity to approach again, tentatively stepping over guns shed onto the ground carelessly. "So..." He says slowly, "Did.. You.... Find something?" He asks, "W-Where'd you go?"

"A while ago I was attacked in a hotel room by a crazy Rick who scrubbed my nails for blood," Rick explains as he starts putting together a machine, taking one thing apart to weld together two pieces of machinery. "I didn't think anything of it then, weird shit happens to me all the time-- but it was _Five's_ blood he got ahold of. _I_ was that crazy Rick."

He turns around to pull down a magnifying rig from the ceiling, and starts working on an extremely nimble bit of wiring, squinting in concentration and holding his breath until the wire is in place and he can breathe. He stands up again to grab another stray piece of machinery and starts stripping it for parts, working frantically while the centrifuge behind him spins and whirs. 

Morty's eyes go a little bit confused as he speaks, "Wait, so-- you already had... done this?" He asks, stupidly, "When?" As a rule, Morty wasn't as exposed to nonlinear time travel as he would have thought he'd be by now. But Rick detested it, and Morty was frankly not smart enough to go to the past without showing someone his iPhone 8 or his light-up sneakers or dumb shit like that, and the last thing they needed was to horribly transfigure a world beyond repair again. "Does that mean you'll be able to track him after all?" Morty adds, sounding hopeful for his grandpa.

"Yeah," Rick says, scooting across the room on his wheely stool to grab another piece of equipment, which he starts stripping parts from. "I could never use this to get him back to his own dimension because while he was with me, he wasn't home-- but now that he's back home I'll be able to find him with this." 

He stands up to fetch the blood from the cetrifuge, and separates the plasma from the cells under a device Morty couldn't begin to understand, before he dabs a bit of it into a vial of portal fluid, practically shaking as he works. 

"He went home to stop the apocalypse in his timeline," he says as he works, shaking his hands out to try and stop the trembling. "To save his family-- that's where he'll be. I'll just take us to the day after the apocalypse."

It's seared like a brand into his mind, the date that Five's world ends. He could never forget the time he took Five there, _died_ there to save him. He just has to get there and find Five after he's saved the world. 

Morty watches Rick closely, worrying his lip with his teeth and shuffling on his feet, anxious and antsy. Anxious for this to be over, antsy for what happens when it is. What does it mean if Rick finds Five again? Morty never thought he'd have to deal with his grandpa getting a boyfriend, so every few minutes that mean little sneer comes back, bitter and petty over having to share Rick's attention, like a spoiled dog and a new baby.

At least Morty knows better than to say anything about it. He knows better than to try and confront those nasty feelings out in the open. So he just tugs at his shirt, plucking at the hem with his fingers and shifting in place, uncomfortable. "So you think you'll be able to find him? Did... did he know how to stop the apocalypse when he went back?" Morty's still leaning over Rick's shoulder, leaning back the appropriate amount as Rick rolls by him and continues working despite Morty's hovering.

"No, he didn't even really know what causes it," Rick answers as he pours the concoction of portal fluid and blood into a vial that he snaps into the base of the portal gun. "But he's smart enough to figure it out. Let me just set the date-- alright, we're in business, baby!" Springing up out of his seat, he fires a portal into the air and jumps through without waiting for Morty, but the portal is still open behind him for Morty to follow through. 

When Rick's feet hit the ground on the other side of the portal, though, he's shocked into stillness. The world has been reduced to rubble around him, broken and burning to the ground on all sides. The sky is choked out orange and black, raining debris in massive hurtling chunks, while ash blankets the air, choking out the oxygen. He couldn't breathe even if he wanted to try.

It's not possible. It isn't possible that Five could have _failed_. He's too clever and worked too hard to just... lose. But Rick is stunned into stillness at the sight of the destruction around him, proving that Five didn't know how to stop it. Whatever caused that laser, whatever ended the world... still happened. And Five must have died along with the rest of the world, this time. 

He can't move a muscle, all he can do is stare out at the city laid waste before him, the buildings leaning and creaking and burning. It doesn't even hurt yet, he's just in shock. 

Steps through a second later, Morty lands just after having enough forethought to grab a gun he had no business wielding, just in case some stuff turned up that it would better to be armed for. He comes through armed and ready, but sags when the first wave of dry, coarse wind hits him in the face. It's gritty, silt and dust hanging like a smog, heavy enough that Morty squints as he looks around.

If Five was meant to stop the apocalypse, he definitely didn't look like he'd succeeded. The gun drops pointlessly to his side, awe evident in his face. There wasn't a sound aside from the rush of wind and the crackling snap of fires still chewing at pieces of buildings in the rubble scattered around them. The sky was a complete, uniform gray: Except in the distance, there looked to be an orange light cutting through it-- either a fireball, or the sun itself.

Finally, Morty finds Rick. Despondent, sharing that look of horror he'd worn only a few minutes ago, when he thought he wouldn't be able to follow Five. It makes Morty just as guilty to see now. "W-What happened, do you think?" He asks softly, nudging at an ornate, wrought-iron fence that seemed to have part of 4 icons on it, familiar only to Rick. "Maybe we overshot it, you know? Can't we just go farther back and interrupt him while he's...." Morty trails off hesitantly. 

Rick doesn't seem to hear Morty. He doesn't hear anything at all, except for the thundering of his own disquieted heart in his ears. His eyes are dull and open wide, reflecting the orange fires of the city back in their dissociative stare-- he doesn't even blink when wind kicks up dust into his face. 

It still doesn't hurt yet. He feels an aching, bottomless hollow in his chest where he knows his heart should be, but it doesn't hurt yet. He drops down to his knees in the dust, the wind blowing his lab coat out behind him. He wishes he could be like the fabric, weightless and blown away from this place. 

"H-Hey, Rick..." Morty half-whispers, approaching to kneel on the gravel beside his grandpa, touching his shoulder. The worse Rick got, the more scared he was. This was un-fucking-heard of, and Morty's entire body felt like it was running cold at the sight. His knees hurt where so many sharp rocks dig in past his jeans, and he can only imagine what Rick is feeling, entire legs bearing the brunt of his weight, "C-Come on, we-- We just gotta go back a little bit more, maybe.... Maybe we can..." Morty glances around desperately, "D-Didn't he survive before? Maybe he survived again we just gotta... figure out... where he went." 

Rick just looks up at Morty, those eyes wide and practically sightless they're so dull. He can feel his brain try to kick some of the dust off and get a good gallop going, but he feels stifled, like he's hovering underwater. Weightless and drowning in the grief slowly creeping up on him, like the fires slowly spreading around them. 

He knows there's nowhere else Five could have gone. The only place he could naturally open a rift to is his own home dimension. He couldn't have gone to another dimension-- and he couldn't have gone back in time, or this apocalyptic wasteland wouldn't exist. He would have solved the problem, and the world would have been put back to normal before Rick even got here. Time travel is funny like that, whatever's going to happen has already happened. 

No, the fact that he's kneeling in the middle of a barren waste means that Five failed, full stop. He's not here, he's not _anywhere_ , anymore. He could go back in time to meddle, try to throw his hand in, try to save him, but he knows from personal experience how badly that can go. He could make things worse, he could put Morty in danger. And if going back a couple of days to find and help Five had worked, the world would have already been repaired by today's date.

It isn't that it would be _impossible_ to go back in time, even just one day to try and catch him before this world fell to pieces, but it feels like he's looking out at the end of a story. This is what he built up to his entire life, and then he just... whiffed it at the finish line. What could Rick do that Five wasn't clever enough to try? If Five failed, what made Rick think _he_ had the secret to save the world? He couldn't save Dianne, when it came down to it, why could he succeed here? 

And what was the alternative, grab Five and bail? Leave his family to die again? Five would never forgive him. He'd let Rick _die_ in that alternate dimension when he thought there was a sliver of a chance that he could find out what happened to his family. What kind of selfish monster would Rick have to be to swoop in just to save him-- for what, for himself? For his own happiness? If Five was going to die, he deserved to die with his family. 

Just thinking the words makes Rick's heart clench, and in the next moment when he blinks, Morty watches for the first time since he's known Rick as fat tears roll silently down his grandpa's cheeks, cutting white lines through the dust clinging to his skin. He looks like little more than a lost, scared child as he stares up at Morty, the age lines smoothing out with a childish, pure kind of anguish that comes from all the way down in his gut. 

Eyes-wide astonishment twists over Morty's face as he sees Rick crying. He'd _never_ seen Rick cry like this, never seen him _look_ like this. Rick looked small. He looked scared, and sad, and _horrified_ \-- Morty's entire body ached at the expression on his face. He looked like Five had died. Maybe he had. Immediately Morty felt guilty for every nasty little thought he'd had earlier, clenching his entire soul against the idea that he'd somehow caused this. 

It wasn't possible. It didn't matter. The loss was evident on Rick's face, and Morty could do nothing but wrap his arms around Rick's neck tightly, pulling his grandpa to his chest, burying fingers in his thick mane of hair. Morty holds onto him like he's afraid Rick will drift away, like he's afraid he'll burst, his fingers going white in his grasp. 

"Hey, it's okay-- I-It's okay, Rick, there's other places he could have gone," Morty says, not even knowing what he was talking about. Was there hope? Sure, technically. Was there a chance? Really? No. Morty didn't know why Rick was set on Five's death, but there's no world where he would be crying like this unless there was absolutely no chance... it was too vulnerable, too raw, too real. Rick didn't fuck around like this. This wasn't a funny kind of joke, it was just sad.

Fumbling at Rick's waist, Morty finds the portal gun in his lab coat pocket, "Come on, Rick, let's go home. W-we can plan better back there. You don't need to be here, we-we can come back later if we need to," Morty cradles his grandpa's shoulders in his arms as he cranes his neck to try and see around that very same man, struggling with the dials on the gun one-handed.

Rick doesn't move as Morty handles the portal gun, just another indication to his grandson of what a bad shape he's in. He doesn't speak or even look at him as Morty opens a portal back home, doesn't protest as Morty helps him up to his feet and through the portal, and still doesn't say a word as he sits Rick down on the edge of the cot in the garage. 

Really, he's not even seeing the garage in front of him. The image of the apocalypse is seared into his mind instead, the sense-memory of what he'd seen burned into his retinas, like a permanent overlay in front of his eyes. He doesn't have any strength in his body left, no more will to fight. 

What did he have to fight _for?_ Rick has lost people before. A lot of people. Losing Dianne and Beth was the event that sent his whole life in motion, losing friends in the war only bolstered his courage to finish to avenge them, losing his first Morty inspired him to find the one currently helping to peel him out of his lab coat, and losing Unity very nearly pushed him over the edge-- but he can say with absolute certainty that he's _never_ been laid quite this low. 

Morty spends a considerable amount of time just trying to get Rick to look at him properly. For some reason, Rick's eyes don't seem to focus. Morty could position himself front and center, he could make himself impossible to ignore: but something in Rick's eyes seemed to be looking at something else entirely, something far away and awful. It was haunting, terrifying; It worried Morty to his core. 

"Rick?" Morty asks, voice high and anxious as he desperately tries to call his attention at all, "C-come on, Rick, don't-- don't mess with me like this. Y-you gotta say something, _please_." He's begging, as pathetic as it sounds. 

Rubbing his hand against his shirt, Morty whines low under his breath, panicked as he looks from Rick to anything in his lab that might have helped him. He didn't know the protocol here, wasn't sure how to act. A part of him wondered if he should get his mom, but she probably wouldn't know any better, so... 

He does what he can. Rearing his hand back, Morty slaps Rick across the face low on his cheek, meeting the hard line of his jaw and immediately making his hand hurt something fierce. He winces, breathing heavily and holding his hand as he braces for impact. No way would he be allowed to get away with that.

Rick's face moves fluidly with the impact, and it stays there for a moment, glancing off to the side as his brain bluescreens and does a hard reboot, shocked back to reality by the hard slap to his cheek. 

Five is dead. After everything they went through and fought for, everything Five withstood and everything Rick sacrificed, Five is dead. The pain finally starts to work its way past the shock and settle like a deep, bleeding wound in his chest. Five was supposed to be the one he could trust to protect himself. Five was supposed to be the one Rick didn't have to be scared to lose. He was supposed to be strong enough to stay with Rick forever. Rick should have made him a fucking phoenix protocol, after all. 

He looks up at Morty again, his eyes vacant and sad and tired, and gives him a soft sigh. "I think I need to lay down," he says, and lifts his legs up onto the cot, rolling over to put his back to Morty. 

"W-We'll try to track his signature again in the morning, okay?" Morty says sympathetically, hesitantly as he relaxes from his defensive position. Not only does Rick not say anything, he also doesn't even chastise him for slapping him. But at least saying he needed to sleep was better than crying and staring stupidly at the air, catatonic and motionless. Morty had to hope it was a positive step forward, anyway, from the crying and motionless staring. Sleeping was good, right?

Rick lays down just as robotically, though, and Morty would not have been surprised to see him staring at the wall as blankly as he'd been staring at air just a moment or two ago. But this time Morty lets him have it, gentle fingers plucking the small, well worn blanket from the end of his cot and draping it across his body, smoothing it nervously across Rick's shoulders like a clucking hen.

Morty thinks about staying there. He thinks about sitting on a stool and staying with Rick until he wakes up and lashes Morty for even daring to hit him, until he's so annoyed with Morty's presence that he forgets how upset he is about Five's loss. Instead, Morty shuts the light off on his way out the door, leaving with a quiet, barely-audible, "Love you, grandpa."

He tries not to panic over the fact that Rick doesn't say it back.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been a minute since a chapter of this was posted! don't worry, it shall be finished!!
> 
> also, there's a pretty intense suicide attempt in this chapter, so be forewarned

As a rule, Rick Sanchez is pretty good about compartmentalizing trauma. He's had to do it before, on a massive scale, more times than any single person should have to. As a general rule, if he can make it to sleep, then by morning he will have reset his brain and he'll be able to trudge onwards until he's put so much distance between himself and the object of his anguish that he can convince himself to carry on. 

That isn't the case, today. 

He wakes up staring at the wall, unsure of when exactly he fell asleep, and his entire consciousness is consumed with how badly it hurts to have lost Five. He doesn't even have the energy to be properly angry at himself for letting himself get to this point. He's supposed to be more careful, more guarded, to avoid situations exactly like this one. 

Rick tells himself that if there's a future in which he manages to pull himself up by his boot straps and goes back out to find and save Five and correct the timeline, then he'll come back to this exact moment to tell himself that he did it, that he fixed everything-- but he doesn't come. Further confirming what he already knew. If he'd done anything that managed to save Five, his dimension wouldn't have been a smoldering pile of ash by the time he got there. 

Maybe it would be poetic to go back in time, to find Five one last time and die with him in the apocalypse they both fought so hard to get him the chance to try and prevent. He stands up off the cot and opens the hatch into his sub-lab, climbing down the ladder and approaching the rows of tubes that make up his phoenix protocol. Soundlessly, he flips the off switch on the wall, and all the tubes and wires go dark, leaving the clones suspended in their solutions inert and quiet. He envies them. 

Really, who was Rick to wedge himself selfishly between Five and his family? He climbs the ladder and closes the hatch, and fashions a sturdy length of extension cord into a thick, braided loop with the same sort of casual intent someone might finger-weave a friendship bracelet. He can't just insert himself into Five's life, who was he to say whether his meddling in Five's timeline in the first place was what led to him failing his mission? He ties the other end of the cord to the support beam for the garage door, and pulls across a stool. 

Five would have been better off without him. He fits the loop around his neck. 

Morty had checked on Rick throughout the night, padding silently downstairs under the guise of getting water, of using the bathroom, of getting a snack; but each time, Morty was confronted face to face with the darkness coming from the garage, devoid of its usual blue-white glow filtering through the gaps in the door. He'd considered knocking, just to check in, to see if there was anything he could do or say to somehow rouse his grandpa out of this funk. 

Instead Morty goes back at breakfast, carrying an optimistic looking tray of bacon, sausage, and a quiche his mom had spent the better part of the morning making, for no other reason than a cooking program had bet she couldn't.

"H-Hey, Rick?" Morty asks sheepishly, knocking twice before opening the door and nudging it further open with his hip, squinting in the half-light of the unlit garage, "I brought you some breakfast, man. You-- you gotta see what mom made, it's basically an egg pie, but I-I don't know, it's pretty good..." assuming that interrupting was already insult enough to condemn him to death, Morty braces the tray on his hip as he flicks the lights on, turning once he had use of both hands.

The tray clatters to the floor. Morty's scream fills the house.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD," Morty yells, surging over to his grandpa and grabbing desperately at his pockets. He finds his multitool there, fumbling and almost dropping it before finding the laser cutter extension and slicing Rick from the rafters, feeling like he was about to puke as his body hits the ground with a dull, lifeless thud. Morty's at his side in a second, only taking just enough time to turn the laser off before beginning to pull frantically at the thick cord around his neck. Rick's face was an ugly purple, a deep line around his throat a nasty, mottled red.

Little hands search for a pulse on his throat, his wrist. Morty finds none.

Panic claws at his throat as he realizes that not for the first time in recent memory, Rick is dead. He's seen his grandpa die or nearly die so many times that he would have thought he'd be desensitized to it by now, but evidently not. He'd never seen Rick die like _this_ before, strung up by himself, too miserable to go on. Morty shouldn't have left him alone last night. 

The last few times he's seen Rick die, he stumbled out of those weird tubes of clones he has downstairs, where his brain would be automatically downloaded and he would wake up again. So why is he here like this? Unless-- he'd destroyed the protocol once before. Morty's blood runs even colder, if Rick had destroyed it then Morty wasn't smart enough to put it back together. He could find another Rick to help him fix it, in the hopes that Rick would project back into a body-- but wasn't Rick already supposed to project to another dimension if his unit wasn't working? 

That means Rick must have really gone to great lengths to make sure he would die for good, all because of Five. Because he couldn't save one old man.

The reality of it hits Morty like a sledgehammer to his chest. He looks to the door, to the house that seemed determinedly empty, as if no one had heard him or wasn't paying him any mind-- and wouldn't that be horribly fucking typical of them? Morty can feel the unsteady buzz of adrenaline begin to fuel him, can feel the tremoring in his hands grow worse the longer he holds the remnants of his grandfather. It was surreal. It went against everything he'd known about him. 

Rick Sanchez didn't admit defeat. Rick Sanchez didn't let go, he didn't _quit_. But he did lose people, and that was the piece Morty was missing. A loss Rick couldn't take, after a lifetime of coping.

Morty sets Rick on the ground with all the gentleness a man in mourning can provide, gingerly setting his shoulders, then head on the hard cement before standing. He tears to the subterranean laboratory under the concrete floor, yanking open the door and crawling down the ladder. What did he do? What could _Morty_ do? Frantically flipping at any switches on the wall he can find, patting them down due to the blindness of the dark, Morty finds a switch that illuminates everything at once-- and the first vial with its hapless Rick clone begins to bubble, a churning froth working within the tube as a high-pitched, feminine voice calls, " _Phoenix protocol, activated._ "

He stands there for seconds, and then minutes, waiting for something to happen, as the horrible sinking feeling that he's too late settles in his chest. Would the protocol even work after however many hours? Did it have to be instant to make the transfer? Is his consciousness too far gone, scattered to the wind? Or maybe he really did just let himself be projected into a different universe to get a fresh start, _away_ from Morty-- 

The tube in front of him opens, and drops the body inside to the ground with a wet slap. Rick is coughing, inhaling weakly, choking up fluid from the vial across the floor in a painful display, his entire body shivering and numb. It's such a shock that Morty doesn't even move at first as Rick retches and another wave of artificial amniotic fluid splashes across the floor, and only when Rick lets out a weary sob does Morty dart to the wall where he has a row of spare lab coats hung up on hooks. 

Rick blinks at the floor, his mind taking a little longer to reboot that normally. He'd been dead, honest to god _dead_ this time, and for how long he wasn't exactly sure. It certainly feels like longer than it's ever been, before. He wishes that would scare him, to give him some will to live, but he just finds himself missing the peace. 

"Morty," his voice is tired and resigned as the lab coat draped over his back starts soaking up the fluid on the ground. "Why?"

"I--I don't know, okay?" Morty says grimly, mouth drawn into a line. He's panicking. Frantic. He can feel his heart like a sledgehammer to the teeth, beating heavily and incessantly, the fear and adrenaline of the past twenty minutes crashing to a stop as the reality of what had just happened sunk in. Rick had killed himself. He'd _wanted_ to die. Morty had ruined that. 

He shut down the part of himself that wanted to feel guilty. There's no point feeling guilty over it now. He can't help it. What's done was done. Morty stands quickly and grabs a towel from across the lab, using it to ineffectively dab at Rick's hair, "That's-- that's not how you go out. I didn't... y-you know, you don't-- that can't be how you go out." He doesn't look Rick in the eye, guilt still gnawing angrily at his chest. How did he say this without sounding selfish? Maybe he should just let himself sound selfish.

"W-We still need you around, Rick. You-- you have other reasons to live aside from Five, and he-- we-we don't even know where he is, or what he's doing-- you just-- you can't _give up_ like that--" it sounds weak, even to Morty's own ears, but he's never exactly been known for his emotional depth.

Rick just stares unseeingly at the cold linoleum under him as Morty fusses with his fucking _hair_ of all things, trying to sop the amniotic fluid up like he's just stepped out of the fucking shower. He wishes he could summon any feeling to his chest. Sorrow over being awoken, grief at the idea that he "needs" to keep living. Even if he could just summon the familiar fire of anger at Morty for having the fucking audacity to think he can make decisions for Rick. If he could manifest a single emotion in his heavy, empty chest, maybe they could get somewhere. 

His chest remains painfully empty. Vacant in a way he both has and hasn't felt before. He's been low enough to make attempts before, and not just a couple times. He's struggled with depression all his life, and he's felt some low lows before that he thought he could never pull himself back out of. Lows that he was certain were as low as a human being could possibly feel. He was wrong. 

This is the lowest a person could be. If he'd ever thought he was in love before, if he'd ever thought he'd lost something he couldn't take before-- god, he was a fucking idiot. There is nothing lower than this. He already wants to go back to that quiet, safe place where he doesn't have to think or hurt or feel-- or feel how he _doesn't_ feel, more like. He doesn't want to be here, listening to Morty tell him how people "need" him. People will always think they need him. 

What's the alternative? Explain to Morty why he wanted to die? Morty isn't capable of understanding the level of complexity of his and Five's relationship. Morty's in the stage where he dates people based on how hot they are, he couldn't wrap his stupid little head around a relationship like his and Five's. He couldn't possibly understand the depth to which they were connected, the lengths they went to fight for eachother, the war they waged against the rest of the universe together and the instinctive level they understood one another. Morty just wouldn't get it. He'd tell Rick to buck up or some stupid shit like that, feed him some placating garbage that people always supply the depressed. 

Head hung low, he just sits there and lets Morty fuss with him, without a word. He can't think of what to say that could explain to Morty what he's feeling, so he doesn't even try. 

It's worse that way, anyway. At least there would have been some level of normalcy to Rick lashing out and berating Morty for his audacity. At least if Rick had turned around and breathed fire on Morty, he could justify it as some sort of emotional response for what had just happened. Rick sitting prone on the ground, unmoving and unspeaking, was so much worse than anything Rick could have said to Morty about his intelligence, or his forethought, or his empathy-- _anything_.

"So-- _so_ ," Morty says, trying to add some fucking steel to his tone, like he actually was a person who could deal with picking Rick up. Like he was even sort of qualified. "S-So we're going to get clothes on, and we're going to have dinner with the family, and then we're gonna go--go fuck some shit up somewhere, okay? I-I know you were saying we owed a shipment of something to-to that Love Hotel planet. Some weird thing, right--" 

Morty's talking to fill the space. He knows it and Rick knows it. But as Morty props Rick up and wraps the towel around his shoulders, he manages to keep talking. If Morty tread water for long enough, Rick would surely perk up-- it was the only thing he could rely on. He leads Rick to his shower, turning the water on and talking about nothing, hoping Rick would tell him to shut up, to move on, to do _anything_.

Rick sits under the hot spray, a little too warm for his frozen skin, but he doesn't open his mouth to complain. It's nice to feel something, even if "something" in this case is a burning sensation. He just sits there, not really listening to Morty talk despite still being able to hear the squeaky drone of his voice, lost in his own thoughts instead. 

The fact that Morty thinks he can comfort Rick by saying they "don't know where Five is" is laughable. Rick knows exactly where he is, and knows that at any moment he could defy the timeline and go back to inject himself somewhere he doesn't belong in their history, and fuck things up even worse. That's how it went when he tried to save Dianne-- he knows how these things go. He knows the futility of trying to rescue someone from a death that time wrote in place, and he knows how badly it destroyed him to attempt to fight it regardless. 

He doesn't protest as Morty dries him off, and gets him into a sweater, he even actually helps him a little when it comes to pulling a pair of sweat pants up his legs-- something comfortable and cozy, in these trying times. Apparently Morty thinks pajamas will be enough to comfort Rick, at this point. He doesn't say a word as Morty drags him past his own corpse in the garage, watching numbly as the boy kicks and shoves it until it falls through the hatch into his hidden basement, to deal with later. 

There's no point in fighting Morty, he'll just have some kind of conniption about it. Rick can see how pitifully he's keeping it together, he can see how desperate he is to feel normal-- and maybe he's going soft, or maybe he just doesn't have the energy to deal with it, but he just can't find it within himself to resist even though he knows Morty would have a melt down. He usually likes watching Morty flip out, but right now he doesn't think he could stomach that volume of emotion from the boy. 

Summer's in the living room when Morty brings Rick in through the archway by the hand, and she looks up from her phone. "Hey grandpa, you're looking comfy," she says blandly, and Rick just fucking blinks at her like a zombie. She pulls a face, glancing from Rick to Morty. "Is he good?"

"Uh, yeah-- yeah--" Morty says awkwardly, kicking out the chair at the head of the dining room table and sitting Rick in it, looking about as clumsy as a child forcing a Barbie to sit in a chair. Rick looked glazed over, like he wasn't fully present. Honestly, Morty had no way of knowing if Rick _was_ fully present. Aside from him questioning Morty's boneheaded resuscitation, there had been no other indicator that Rick was coherent. 

Once Rick is sat, Morty goes around his back, giving Summer serious, 'be cool' eyes over Rick's shoulder, hoping somehow that his grandpa didn't choose to notice _that_ of all things. If anyone could help talk Rick through a break up, it would be Summer-- but Morty would have to tell her somewhere else, definitely not right in front of Rick. Who knew how Rick would even react to it being diminished like that? After all, Five didn't exactly _break up_ with Rick. It probably would have been easier on everyone if he had.

Quickly busying himself in the kitchen, Morty pours Rick a drink how he likes it, trying to act as natural as possible-- and failing miserably, his acting always subpar. "Me and Rick were just doing stuff in the garage," Morty says, spilling a little bourbon as he pours it thanks to his shaking hands. He grimaces, licking his finger clean and having to stop himself from immediately retching at the taste. "We-we're gonna wait for dinner and then head out, right, Rick?" Morty says, loudly trying to cue Rick to join in the conversation, to give them absolutely fucking anything at all.

Rick knows what Morty is trying to do, but he can't muster enough energy within him to care. He wishes he could at least feel a flicker of happiness that Morty cares so much about him being alive that he would go through the effort of this whole fucking display, but Rick finds his chest still woefully empty of any feeling whatsoever, even as Morty tries desperately to ignite some kind of response in him. The effort of putting his brain into gear enough to get words from his head to his mouth feels like too much, and so he doesn't. 

"Uhh..." Summer swings her legs off the couch when Rick doesn't respond, and doesn't even try to take the drink Morty sets out for him. "Are you sure he's good?"

She does see Morty's desperate attempts to act like everything's fine, so she doesn't ask any needlessly probing questions as she pulls a chair out at the table beside Rick, tossing her arm over the back as she regards their vacant grandpa with a cocked brow, and then glances up at Morty again questioningly when the man doesn't even seem to acknowledge the fact that she came into the room. 

Morty's face is pulled into a pained grimace when Summer looks at him, and he gestures to Rick cluelessly, encouraging Summer to feel free and try, too. "He will be," Morty promises loudly, still trying to continue the conversation, despite Rick's stalwart refusal to participate. "He's--he's been really stressed lately with-- with working on something," Morty says unhelpfully, his brain unable to come up with anything better or more clever than something. Nice. "I-It kinda fell through, but so we're-- we're just gonna move on and be done, y'know? Just--just put it down, 'cause--cause there's no point doing something that's just going to upset you and..." Morty hates himself right now, hates how fucking weird and lecturey he sounds, like he's trying to convince Rick to move the fuck on. The urge to just tell Summer was growing, gnawing at him-- chicks were better with this kind of thing, that was a known fact. But he hesitates, fixing Summer with a look. He's clearly suffering.

Summer can tell that Morty isn't saying something, keeping something close to his chest. He's always been a shitass liar, but he doesn't even seem like he's lying right now, he seems like he's trying desperately to communicate something he's too scared to say out loud. If it were about anyone other than Rick she could start making some pretty educated guesses, but when it came to Rick's crazy lifestyle, she couldn't even begin to assume what had happened that has Morty in such a state. 

"Some kinda project, grandpa?" she asks, trying to pick up where Morty left off. "You wanna tell me about it?"

He doesn't. He just blinks down at the bourbon on the table, starting to wonder whether it would be worth the energy to stand up just to get away from these two. But he can't even muster the energy to lift his hand to drink, much less stand up and walk away. It isn't even like listening to his grandkids try and fail to relate on some level to what he's feeling is making him feel anything, anyway. If he could be angry at them, or even just annoyed... but he still feels blank on the inside, like a chalkboard wiped clean with a wet cloth. 

Summer looks up from Rick, giving Morty a confused and desperate look with a shrug. She doesn't have any more idea than Morty does, how to get through to Rick if he won't even look at her. For all she knows this isn't even Rick, this is some fucking clone or something-- or a hologram, she doesn't know jack shit. 

"Ahhhhhh......" Morty groans agonizingly under his breath, tugging a hand anxiously through his hair as panic grips his chest. What if this was it? What if Rick was just like this forever? What if Rick wasn't really Rick anymore, he really _had_ been too far gone, and the only thing that exists inside of him is the very last vestiges of Rick's fucking soul? Oh god, had Morty trapped a part of his grandfather in a Hellish purgatory? 

Morty, almost works himself into hyperventilating, his brain moving a mile a minute, going down every single 'what if' and 'oh no' that could cross his fucking mind. Still groaning, he gestures over Rick's back for Summer to follow him, "I'm gonna go to the bathroom Rick, be right back," He says unnaturally, before turning on his heel and marching off, awkward and tight, just out of sight around the corner in the hall.

There he waits for Summer to follow, grabbing her arm once she does, "Five's gone and Rick tried to kill himself," Morty blurts under his breath before he can think of anything better to say, covering his mouth almost as soon as he does. He groans, loudly, agonizingly, like this ordeal was causing him actual, physical pain.

"Holy shit," Summer whispers, and leans around the corner to look at Rick, where he's still just sitting at the table, staring down at the drink Morty poured for him without making a move towards it. Her grandpa has always been so full of life, it feels almost impossible to consider him in a state where he would even _think_ about killing himself. The Rick she knew thought he was a god or something, how could he fall so far? "What, just now? You found him?"

Morty, groaning, nods his head, tugging fingers roughly through his hair, curls catching on his fingers and making him pull a little harder than he meant to. "I-I didn't know what to do, so I-- I turned the Phoenix protocol back on and I brought him back but he won't _say_ anything-- he-he did say something when he first woke up-- but since then he's just," Morty gestures at Rick through the wall, putting a hand on his chest to try and remind himself to take deep breaths, failing miserably, "What do we do? How do we get him out of this?"

"I don't know," she hisses. "Why do you think _I_ know? Do you think mom would know what to do? She's a doctor, maybe she'd know?"

Leaning back around the corner to look at Rick, she watches him and waits for any sign of life. A hand wave, a cough, she'd settle for a fucking fart at this point but he doesn't move or make a sound. He's just sitting there, staring down at the drink without a word. She'd almost think he was dead all over again if she couldn't see the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes. 

Turning back to Morty, she shakes her head. "Okay, listen, one time a girl slit her wrists in the school bathroom and she totally died. I didn't know her or anything, I heard she was a bitch-- but anyway, the whole eleventh grade got grief counseling. I thought it was bogus, but maybe that's what grandpa needs?"

" _Counseling?"_ Morty's voice breaks embarrassingly as he yelps the word. Quickly, he ducks his head, having to remember to keep his voice down. But how the fuck was he supposed to get Rick to fucking _grief counseling?_ The man turned himself into a _pickle_ just to avoid talking about the bullshit family stuff they went through!

What kind of clinic would even have therapists who could talk through this kind of grief? Death of a loved one didn't really begin to describe their relationship, according to Rick. Morty hadn't forgotten the snarled conversation they'd shared. He hadn't forgotten how seriously Rick took Five-- even if Morty didn't get it, personally, since the older man hadn't seemed... fun, or whatever. 

Morty takes a chance to look around the corner at Rick now, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible to avoid detection, only belatedly wondering if that would help. "C-Can I just take him to a doctor? Don't you have to--to book appointments for those?" Morty asks, "Look at him, Summer, we don't have time to book a fucking appointment!"

"You asked me for an idea and I gave you an idea, don't bite my head off about it," Summer hisses back.

Whether the kids are aware or not, Rick can hear their hushed conversation from around the corner. They hadn't gone very far, nor are they making much effort to keep their voices low. He knows they're just worried about him, but just like every other feeling he can't manage, he also can't summon enough energy to care that they're worried. He can't even find it in him to be upset with them for thinking of dragging him off to therapy. A therapist wouldn't have been able to help anyway, even if they weren't scams by nature. 

But they're not going to stop. Unless he gives them some sign of life, they won't even give him peace. So he forces a bit of energy into his lethargic muscles, just enough for the legs of his chair to make a honking sound as they scrape on the floor, silencing Morty and Summer's argument in an instant as they duck their heads around the corner in the hallway, and watch Rick circle into the kitchen. Morty's stomach drops as he fears for a moment that Rick will open the garage door and attempt to repeat his handiwork-- but instead he takes a right turn. 

A few moments later they watch through the archway into the living room as Rick grabs the remote, turns on the TV, and sits down on the couch to vacantly watch the screen. They just watch him for a moment without moving, as if afraid of being caught, but he doesn't seem interested in looking over at them. 

"That's... progress, right?" Summer whispers.

Morty stares at Rick, now motionless on the couch, for longer than was probably polite. It's hard to tell whether he's feeling nervous or excited about the development, the pained expression on his face could be either. "I don't know," he says stupidly. It was autonomous motion, at least. It was _life_. So, slowly coming out from around the corner, Morty crosses to the living room.

He hovers nervously near the entrance for a beat longer than was natural-- and then he dives in. He can only hope this was Rick wanting to just move on like nothing happened. He could only hope that, given time, Rick would come back to them on his own. Glancing over his shoulder to frown at Summer, Morty goes to sit next to Rick, tightly leaning against the other armrest of the sofa so he can keep Rick in his line of sight.

And that's where Rick sits. For _hours_.

Beth comes home from work and chatters her way through the living room about her workday, complaining about a coworker, and doesn't even seem to notice how listless Rick is being as she talks to him, Morty and Summer while removing her shoes and hanging up her doctor coat in the hall closet. Summer and Morty share worried glances, willing their mother to take note of Rick's odd silence, but she doesn't. She just blows right past them and into the kitchen without a word to Rick directly, leaving them to flank their quiet grandpa. 

Then Jerry comes home from another weary day of job hunting (something he'd been doing more frequently ever since Five dressed him down in front of the family) and he comes into the living room to ask for the remote. He seems to fully expect Rick to tell him to fuck off, and for a moment Morty and Summer think someone will notice how weird Rick is being, but Jerry just seems pleased that Rick isn't fighting him for the TV, and takes the remote to change to his preferred channel. Rick doesn't make a move towards him or even complain about the channel being changed. He didn't really seem to be watching the TV, anyway. 

And still, they sit in silence. Jerry laughs at the TV a couple times, but seems utterly blind to what's happening on the couch beside his favorite chair. Beth calls for dinner some amount of confusing, liminal time later, and Jerry turns off the TV to head into the dining room, but Rick still doesn't move. 

"Should we tell them?" Summer whispers right across Rick's chest. He doesn't seem to really be paying attention to her and Morty, anyway. 

"What good would that do?" Morty asks miserably, "Mom would act sad, but she didn't really know Five, and he totally made dad feel like a dick when he stopped by. He'll probably be glad he's gone," Morty frowns. It wasn't like either parent had taken any notice that anything was even wrong with Rick, who was basically catatonic right before their very eyes. It spoke to the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy the Smiths had held onto for so long: If you didn't say anything, you were assumed to be just fine. Even if there was full evidence to the contrary staring them right in the face. 

Glancing from Rick to the family slowly getting ready for dinner just a few feet away, Morty sighs heavily, looking defeated as he looks back up at Summer, "Let's just get through dinner, okay? We can go back into the garage or something--" Fuck, the garage. Morty totally forgot to clean it up at all. So what, they finish dinner and Rick has to go back to looking at the place he killed himself? 

He'll excuse himself to use the bathroom again and clean it up really fast. It didn't have to be perfect, just all the overt evidence of his prior-iteration's destruction... thrown away to be dealt with later. 

"We-we'll go back to the garage and talk and stuff, and then he'll sleep and--and maybe he'll feel better in the morning," Morty finishes breathlessly as Beth calls again for her kids and father to get to the table, which makes Morty stand abruptly, urging Rick with him, "Come on, can you help--" he mutters tersely, determined to at least get through dinner. Baby steps was his only real option, at this point.

Summer stands up and takes Rick by the hand to try and assist. "Come on, grandpa, dinner. Aren't you hungry?"

Rick isn't hungry. He doesn't feel anything, let alone hunger. He can feel Summer's hand on his, and the sudden touch after so many hours of a dissociative fugue state makes his fingers twitch, but beyond that he doesn't respond. Summer sighs, and tugs on his hand a bit.

"Grandpa, you can't just sit on the couch forever," she says, sounding impatient and petulant in a way he's come to expect from teenagers. 

For the first time since this morning, he actually _feels_ something. It's just a flicker of annoyance, but it's more than he's felt since he collapsed out of the tube this morning. He feels annoyed by Summer's lack of patience, by her expecting him to be over this by _dinner_. He didn't really expect anything more from his grandkids, who between the two of them could hardly understand the emotional depth of the fucking Notebook, much less losing a soulmate. But he finds it still irritates him to be so rushed-- so he yanks his hand out of hers without looking at her. 

The action is so sudden and so abrupt after so many hours of stillness that it makes Summer reel back slightly, and she glances at Morty, as if asking him what to do. He's the foremost authority on Rick, after all. He spends the most time with the man, maybe he'll have some idea how to proceed. 

Morty recognizes a petulant gesture of defiance when he sees one. Refusing to be rushed, refusing to even allow Summer the duty of tending to him if she was going to be a brat about it. Morty rushes to take the snatched hand, fixing her with a look. On the one hand, annoyance seemed to be the only way to get a reaction out of him; On the other, they were trying to make him feel _better_ , not worse, and pissing him off didn't bode well for anyone. 

"It's okay, it's okay," Morty says quickly, "Y-You can take whatever time you need, don't worry. I-It's cool, Rick, really--" He also encourages Rick to his feet, which seems easier than it had been for Summer, but Morty isn't sure if it's because it's Morty, because of what he said, or just to be a brat to Summer again. Either way, Morty guides Rick to the dinner table and tries to act casual when they manage it.

"J-Jeez, Mom, it smells really good in here," Morty says dramatically, trying to take notice off of how otherwise quiet the group had been the past few hours, "What-what'd you make? I'm f-freaking starving," He says, still talking loudly and pointedly, giving Summer a look, still trying to act natural.

But Summer, stuck in her feelings about being callously brushed off by her grandpa after she spent _all day_ sitting beside him watching shitty cable TV without so much as a thank-you for spending her time with him, comes into the dining room with a chip on her shoulder as Beth starts portioning out bowls of hearty potroast soup and bread. 

"You want butter on your bread, dad?" Beth asks without looking up, but when Rick doesn't respond, she glances up, and finally seems to notice for the first time that he's just silently staring down at the table. "Dad?"

Summer breaks the confusion before Morty has a chance to, rolling her eyes as she drops into her chair at the table. "Morty fucked up resurrecting grandpa and now he can't talk," she says, her tone petty as she unlocks her phone to text her friend to be ready to pick her up after dinner so she can get the hell out of this nightmare house.

Morty gags on his own drink, choking and coughing as he glares up at Summer, only vaguely aware of the confused and astonished noises coming from their mom and dad.

"What do you mean _resurrecting grandpa?"_ Beth demands.

But Jerry interjects, "No way! We just had a perfectly nice afternoon watching TV in the living room--"

They speak over one another, both so quick to defend and demand in equal measure-- though it didn't take a genius to see that Rick was clearly not himself, sitting prone at the table, without so much as a mean word to say about any of the family now gathered, staring him down like an oddity at a zoo. 

"Oh my god, Morty, what happened? Look at him--" Beth stares across the table at her vacant father.

"You weren't supposed to tell them like that, Summer!" Morty yowls in anguish, pulling at his shirt like it clung too tightly to his skin, "What is the MATTER with you--"

"Oh, so what, we lie to them? Tell them there's a fucking worm in grandpa's brain? Maybe if we piss him off it'll finally snap him out of it!" Summer gestures rudely at Rick. 

"Snap him out of _what_ , what did you _do_ Morty?" Beth demands, leaning her hands on the table. "Did your grandpa die again?"

"He tried to kill himself cause his dumb boyfriend dumped him," Summer says impatiently. "He's been like this all day."

" _Dad?"_ Beth asks, sounding hurt and betrayed, as if Rick trying to kill himself was a personal attack against _her_. She puts her hand on her chest, looking to Rick for answers as if his still-blank face had any to fucking offer. It, of course, did not.

"Oh-- way to go, Summer," Morty sneers, glaring at her across the table when Beth lets out an anguished gasp, his silence confirming her fears. "Remember-- remember when I said don't tell them?" He says furiously, "Now they're gonna be-- they're gonna be-- Mom, it's nothing about you, okay? It's Five, you remember Five, right?"

Surprisingly it's Jerry who speaks up from his chair at the opposite head of the table, nonchalant like he didn't even know what was going on, "Five was that old guy he brought home that one time, right?" He asks, keeping his voice down like he was afraid Rick might hear him, "Was it old age?"

"He didn't _die_ , dad, _Jesus_ ," Summer says, having totally misinterpreted Morty earlier when he said Five was 'gone.' "He just broke up with Grandpa Rick, or something, and he's being a teenager about it. I mean, I've been dumped before and never tried to kill myself." 

Rick can hear his ears ringing, barely even registering what everyone around him is saying. He can hear them arguing, and knows on some level they're arguing about him, but he can't bring himself to care. This is what his family does, what they've always done. He gets no dignity, even in this. 

He is kind of hungry, though. And there's a bowl of soup sitting in front of him. It'd be nice to feel something, even if it's just physical hunger being satisfied, so he sits forward a little bit, lifts his spoon, and silently eats a mouthful of soup. And his family all fucking watch him like he's putting on a three-ring circus, for it. 

"Well," Jerry clears his throat, and even bravely reaches out to pat Rick on the shoulder. "I think you're better off without that guy, anyway. He was an asshole."

Morty prays that Jerry gets hit or told off for his audacity, but the attack doesn't come, and that only seems to encourage Jerry more, like he finally has some common ground with the broken man in front of him. Like heartbreak somehow made them equal in any way.

"We're here if you want to talk, dad. About anything," Beth says from the far side of the table, standing up and reaching across Summer's plate to take Rick's limp hand, squeezing it with all the sorrow she could muster. "Maybe he was just a rebound, you know? To get you back on the horse? You had to get back out there, now you can see there's a whole bunch of fish in the sea, still..."

It's embarrassing, how pathetically earnest they both are. Their bullshit and platitudes were so apparent, their blithe interest in Rick's romantic life so pathetically shallow it was like standing in a puddle. Beth didn't really care about Five, she cared about her dad killing himself. Jerry didn't give a shit about Rick's hurt, only how Rick's hurt could benefit their relationship. 

Morty watches the display with growing nausea, leaning forward over his own soup and taking a big bite, even as Rick takes another one, himself. Well, if they were hoping to annoy him to death, this might just do the trick.

When Rick doesn't immediately bounce back thanks to their empty, hallmark condolences, they even seem to lose interest in minutes, and with a final promise that they're "there for him," the subject shifts to what minor annoyances Beth and Jerry had to deal with that day. As if Jerry encountering someone rude on the bus or Beth having to answer the same question for a patient _three times_ came even close to what Morty knows Rick witnessed just yesterday. 

It feels like a million years ago, now. Every time he blinks, Rick can see a vision of that fiery skyline in perfect relief, like he's still there, like the dinner table in front of him is nothing but delusion to comfort him while he kneels in the ash of the world Five failed to save. 

He's suddenly not so hungry anymore. He doesn't want to sit here and listen to his family complain about their problems when they couldn't even understand the depth of his if he actually laid it out to them in chronological order. None of them really understand how important Five is to Rick, not even Morty who came the closest of all of them. And worse, none of them even cared enough to ask. 

So he pushes his chair back, and the table goes dead silent as they watch him walk back through the archway, and are greeted a moment later by the sound of the TV coming back on, with Rick's bowl of soup only half-eaten on the table in front of him. 

"Nice going, Jerry, you chased him off," Beth scolds. 

_"I_ did?" Jerry immediately and predictably shoots back. "Maybe it was _your_ dumb horse story that made him leave!"

Morty's groan cuts through their petty bickering, high-pitched and broken in the middle where his voice cracks, betraying how deeply that groan is felt, "This isn't a _joke_ ," Morty hisses at his parents in a rare moment of understanding, frustration boiling over.

Surprised, his parents shut up. "Rick _lost someone_ , okay? Five meant a lot to him and you guys are just sitting here complaining about-- about what? Someone was rude to you on the bus? Who cares!" 

" _Morty_ ," Beth's voice is clipped, astonished, "That's not how you talk to us."

"You guys don't matter right now!" Morty's voice breaks as he stands, chair pushing back with an ugly scraping sound on the wood, "C-Can we just care about Rick f-for fucking _one night?_ It doesn't always have to be fucking about _you_ , Jesus _Christ_ \--" Morty hisses and marches off too without bussing his dishes, plopping down beside Rick and crossing his arms, letting the glow from the TV fill the silence, not daring to break it.

At least Beth and Jerry seemed to have gone back to talking about nothing in the next room, sniping quietly to one another, no doubt assigning blame. 

"Sorry I brought you back, Rick," Morty says quietly, so only he can hear. He doesn't look at him, eyes focused on the TV ahead, overbright with tears, "I didn't want to be left alone w-with these assholes."

Rick hears the sound of Summer going out the front door following a honk from the side of the road, and the soft hissing of his daughter and her husband arguing in the dining room, and then finally the quiet sniffles of Morty beside him, and finally he feels something in his chest that isn't annoyance. Something that feels kind of nice. It's such a small and fleeting flicker that he can't hold onto it or even identify it, but he knows that it feels good that Morty's here. 

So he gathers the energy to lift his arm and put it around Morty's shoulders, and when Morty turns into his side to hide his face against his ribs and cry, Rick waits for a repeat, another little flicker in his chest. One doesn't come. But maybe it will again if he keeps trying. 


	11. Chapter 11

If Rick's family thought he would bounce back quickly like he has in the past, they were dead wrong. 

In the past, Rick's tragedies would drag him down for maybe a day or two, but he would regain his shape pretty quickly, moving on to the next adventure, the next distraction. He used to think it was a testament to how resilient he was against heartache and despair, but now that he's in this situation he understands that in truth, he was just never as affected by things until now. This feels like a bottomless pit that there's no way out of. 

It's been weeks. How many, he's not sure, but his family knows (it's been six) and he can feel them hovering every now and then. The living room has practically turned into Rick's bedroom at this point, the debris of his depression spreading out around him in a nest. He's been wearing the same few clothes for weeks, cycling through pairs of sweats and tee shirts whenever Beth manages to wrestle him out of the current pair after enough stains have accrued that she can't stand to look at him anymore. There's a thick stubble on his cheeks, and his face has sagged into a listless expression that never seems to change. 

It was strange for his family, at first. They'd never seen Rick in such a state before. And then after strange, it was frustrating. After a full week of it, they were getting tired of Rick having some kind of problem he couldn't fix. He was always so good about solving issues within a couple days, but suddenly he's just become a lump, and he doesn't have the energy to give any of them attention, especially not for _their_ problems. 

And then it just got concerning. Weeks have passed, and Beth has nearly given up trying to keep the living room clean. Rick often barely touches the dinner she brings him, food going cold and gluey on his plates after a few tired bites, and napkins and tissues spread across the room as if they're multiplying like tribbles. He's been burrowed in a nest of blankets for weeks now just disaffectedly watching tv, never even really reacting to what he's watching-- or else he's just asleep. He seems to be sleeping twelve to fifteen hours these days, and rarely leaves the room except to go to the bathroom. 

It's a cycle Morty is familiar with. Of course when _he's_ the one with problems he's just written off as a stupid kid by his family, but he's still familiar with the way they quickly tire of having to expend any effort to care about anyone else's problems. It feels like it's up to him alone to even try to perk up Rick, but his own efforts have been handily ignored by his grandpa. 

Sometimes he'll tolerate Morty coming to sit in the living room with him and watch tv, and sometimes he'll even engage him in mild conversation. Small talk mostly, which is in itself concerning, given how much Rick _hates_ small talk. But it's something. At least he isn't completely silent anymore. 

"We've got to do something about this," Jerry hisses over the dining room table, keeping his voice down so Rick can't hear it over the tv in the living room. "I'd like to actually be able to watch tv as a family again. I've got my den, but the rest of you--"

"Oh yeah, I bet grandpa Rick will stop being weird if you just tell him how you can't let us into your _man cave_ ," Summer cuts in. "We might get our womanly stink on it."

"I only have the one chair in there," Jerry argues, pointing his fork at her. "My _point_ is that he's taken over the living room long enough, it's been a month and a half already. That's supposed to be a public space. The least he could do is take his sadness into his bedroom, where the rest of us don't have to... you know, see it." 

"He's _in there_ because he _needs us_ ," Beth hisses furiously, all righteous fire and indignant tone, as if she alone had what was best for her father in mind. As if she, like the others of the Smith house, hadn't vented her frustrations about his lingering odor or everlasting presence, "We're not going to hurry him through a crisis because you want to watch TV with surround sound." 

"Again, not about that, but--"

The sound of the Smiths arguing faded into a dull roar in Morty's ears as they quietly bicker just under their breath, just out of Rick's earshot by an octave or two. It felt so mean to be having this conversation right here, right now, when just feet away Rick snored, having again fallen asleep in front of some Space-Court TV show that Morty was pretty sure he'd seen twice already this week. 

Worse still was that they seemed to have this conversation every night for the last three weeks, at least. Every night they lament about what they wish would happen, and every day they do nothing about it. It's hard to deal with, it's ugly to deal with: even Beth who claims that this is for Rick's health is doing nothing to encourage it, not going out of her way to talk to him or sit with him. Beyond making him bathe occasionally and making dinner-- which Morty then brings to him after they're done eating together-- Beth wasn't going out of her way to help him.

With an ugly sneer on his face, Morty chews on what he wants to say, as Beth and Jerry continue to jab at each other, as Summer continues to scoff and roll her eyes and text under the table. It all seems so hideously familiar. Even Rick's despondent form in the living room had become far too familiar. 

There's a lull, and Morty doesn't bother thinking when he takes advantage of it. "It's not like you guys have tried to help him at all," He says, staring stalwartly forward and picking at his food ineffectively. He wasn't hungry, heart hammering far too loudly in his chest to feel anything else.

The silence that follows gets his attention, and he looks up to see the other three staring at him as if he's just given them an epiphany. As if it really took six weeks and Morty muttering over dinner for them to realize that they haven't lifted a finger to try and help Rick out of his funk. 

"Well what would _you_ suggest?" Jerry says defensively. "I haven't seen you doing anything either, you've just been sitting in there sometimes."

"Yeah, it's not like you've fixed grandpa either," Summer says, sounding bored as she glances under the table to return a text to someone.

It's instinct for Morty to recoil, not liking to have attention on him for any reason, accustomed to it being bad. But this is far too important for him to withdraw from, far too important for Morty to shrink down nervously and avoid-- not when he knows in his gut he's just _angry_ on behalf of his grandpa. 

He's angry that his family is acting like this "break up" is about them, he's angry that he can't fix him, angry that no one seems to know the first fucking thing about this man who had given so much to help them. Yeah, Morty is mad. He just does very poorly under scrutiny, so it's hard to keep himself from shuddering, as he sits at the dinner table under scrutiny.

"Yeah, well, no crap Summer, I'm just-- I'm just one kid, you know? I don't know what to do. B-Being there and trying to keep him okay is all I know how to help. But--but at least I'm talking to him. At least I'm _trying_. I haven't fixed him but it's better than just-- just walking past him in the living room and acting like he's a fucking leper, _Summer_ ," Morty says, still refusing to look at either of them.

"It's not _my_ fault he stinks," Summer shoots right back. 

"Enough, both of you," Beth hisses. "None of us know what to do. I thought he'd just... you know, be better by now. He's a part of this family and he just-- hasn't been doing anything to contribute."

"I see it's up to me," Jerry says, sounding way too self-important. "As the man of the house, I've got to-- Summer, don't laugh."

"Sorry," Summer says, still smiling and visibly not sorry. 

"I've got to be the one to pick him up," Jerry finishes. "I'll talk to him man to man and get through to him, easy. You'll see."

None of his family clearly have any faith in him, and as dinner is finished and dishes are carried to the kitchen, Jerry decides to put his plan into action immediately, rather than give himself time to get too nervous and talk himself out of it. He heads into the living room where Rick is just lying on his side on the couch as usual, watching Law and Order from a universe where everyone walks around on all fours. He clears his throat, but Rick doesn't even look at him. 

Even in his neutered state, Rick still has a level of intimidation. Like a gun sitting on a table-- inert, but still dangerous. And Jerry is aware not only of how closely his family is watching him to see if he can succeed like he claims, but of Rick himself, and the risks of him lashing out in some way if he doesn't like Jerry's attempt. He clears his throat again, but Rick still doesn't look up. So he takes a more direct approach.

"So, I got a job interview," he says as he sits down in his armchair. Rick says nothing, so he continues. "For a desk job at a tooth paste company, advertising division. Pretty sweet gig. I'd even get a 5% off employee discount on tooth paste."

"That's great, Jerry," Rick says, sounding bored and maybe a little bit annoyed. 

"Yep, getting out of the house is gonna be pretty great," Jerry carries on. "Providing for the family, bringing home the bacon, putting bread on the table. You know what that's like." 

"That's great, Jerry," Rick repeats flatly, without looking away from the tv screen. 

"Yeah. Yep." It's hard to tell whether Jerry feels validated that he hadn't been immediately barked out of the living room, or daunted that he'd gotten this far. It's a little bit of both. "It'll be good to get back out there and contribute again." 

Rick replies with a grunt that surely was meant to serve as a dismissal more than it was as affirmation. But Jerry, still not hearing no, decides to push his luck.

He actually sits on the very edge of the couch with the confidence of a man who hadn't been unemployed for three years. One arm goes across the cushions on the back of the chair, and he looks down at Rick with actual goddamn sympathy in his eyes, the mad bastard. "You know," Jerry says, his voice simperingly compassionate, almost condescending in its warmth, "Take it from someone who just spent a lot of time where you're at right now, buddy, it's not worth it." 

Another silence greets him, Jerry unable to see the slight, infurious widening of Rick's eyes as he lays on the sofa motionless, like he was playing dead. Morty could practically feel the animosity coming off of his grandpa in waves: It was sheer idiocy that kept Jerry from feeling it, too.

"Sometimes, Rick, you gotta pick yourself up," Jerry says. "Of course it's easier to give up, but if I'd given up back when I was down I'd never be where I am today." Almost-employed and living in a household of people that only barely tolerated him was the dream when there was someone who had it worse than him.

"Great talk, Jerry," Rick says. He doesn't even have the energy to give Jerry a proper dressing-down, and how sad is that? There was a time he would revel in the opportunity to give Jerry a piece of his mind, to rip him apart with such cleverness that the man not only didn't even know how to respond, but sometimes didn't even realize he was being insulted. It was practically an olympic sport in the Smith household, and Rick was the gold medal holder. 

But right now, he doesn't even have it in him to tell him to fuck off. The amount of energy it would take even to just turn his head and look in his direction is insurmountable. Jerry wouldn't know the first fucking thing about relating to the kind of misery Rick is in right now, as if losing a soulmate was even remotely comparable to being fucking fired from a job. 

Jerry looks back over his shoulder, at where Beth and Summer and Morty are peering around the edge of the doorway leading to the kitchen, waiting for him to get Rick to arrive at some miraculous epiphany, which has yet to take root. Summer looks like she's actually enjoying watching him fail, while Beth and Morty just stare, concerned, at the back of Rick's head just barely visible laying on the pillow leaned on the arm rest. 

Groaning under his breath, Morty's head tips forward to thud on the door frame in front of him, exhausted and defeated. He doesn't move. He doesn't dare. He wouldn't even stick around and listen to this train wreck if he could leave but he's rooted to the spot by horror and dread, and maybe some stupid, desperate wish that Rick would snap at Jerry, at least.

But no. He doesn't. And Jerry keeps digging his own grave. "By now, Rick, I'm sure you're.... familiar... with the role you play in this house," He says, clearing his throat and puffing his chest out like he has any right to talk to Rick about his role. 

"Sure," Rick says, deadpan, sounding like he was on another plane of existence altogether, pushing to sit upright. At one point Morty breathlessly thinks they're going to make eye contact, but Rick's eyes go right past Morty to the wall where they stare, lifeless, as Jerry talks.

And boy is he talking. "--So you know how it might effect the entire house when you act like this. Morty, you know-- Morty looks up to you. What questions do you think he's asking right now, huh? Seeing you like this, just... wallowing on the couch? I mean, no offense, Rick, seriously, but-- it's kind of pathetic, right? All this over _some guy?"_

"Yep," Rick says, popping the P loudly. "All this over some guy. Pretty fucking pathetic, Jerry. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about how pathetic I am, it's a great motivator. I'm feeling more jazzed than ever." 

Jerry, either not recognizing the sarcasm for what it is or otherwise just deciding to blow right past it, snaps his fingers. "See, that's the attitude you _should_ have! It'd feel so good to get out there again, don't you think? Go on some adventures, kick some alien butt, or whatever. Solve world hunger, I don't know. Do something productive with your time that isn't... manifesting tissues."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that, Jerry," Rick says, fluffing his pillow with both hands and then laying back down again. 

Jerry, looking confused and disoriented at the lukewarm reception of his little speech, slaps his hand on the sofa cushion twice, glancing over his shoulder again at the waiting family, before pushing himself to his feet, "Well, I'll let you think about that," Jerry says loudly, too loudly, like his family needed the fucking cue that he was done talking to Rick, "If you ever need any advice, or a friendly ear... whatever, you know, just-- compartmentalize like the rest of us," Jerry says with a shitty little tone, like he was telling a too-soon joke.

Then he books a swift retreat, heading quickly through the line of family members before heading back to his chair, chugging the remnants of his beer with a flush on his cheeks, "Did you see that?" He asks, sounding exhilarated.

"What was _that?"_ Morty demands in unison with his father, voice breaking as he yelps, "You're just gonna _talk down to him_ and hope that works? Wh- _why_ do you even think that'd work?!" 

"Hey, we exchanged words. He _participated_ in that, Morty. You might not have heard because you were far away, but I got like five replies out of that guy. Better than you could do."

"Okay, let's just-- let's see if it works," Beth says, not sounding even remotely optimistic that Jerry's lackluster 'talk' with Rick will have any sort of affect on her father. "We can regroup in a few days if it doesn't."

"It will," Jerry says, entirely too sure of himself. 

"If it doesn't," Beth hisses again, just a little bit louder. "Then-- Summer, you try next."

"Ech, why me? He's _your_ dad," Summer sneers without looking up from her phone.

"Because I'm the mom and I say so, that's why," Beth says simply. "Besides, I'm pretty sure he respects you the most out of everyone in this family."

"Ugh, _fine_ ," Summer says, finally putting her phone down. "I'll see what I can do."

"What-- we don't know if my thing worked yet," Jerry protests, but Summer's already leaving the kitchen. 

Rick, unsurprisingly, doesn't move over the next few days. He doesn't even ruminate on what Jerry says, it made such a nonimpact on him. He doesn't care about Jerry's idea of what's pathetic, he doesn't care that Jerry thinks of Five as 'just a guy.' He can't even blame him, he only met Five once. Even if he took the time to get to know him on a more lengthy basis, he still wouldn't understand what made Five so special. He's not smart enough, not clever enough-- and certainly doesn't care about other people enough. 

It's so far beyond the point of Rick expecting any of his family to actually muster up enough energy to care about what was lost, that it barely even bothers him anymore that they still think this is over a _break up._ It's just indicative of his family's nature. He can't even be surprised. Morty knows the truth, and he knows the boy hasn't elaborated deeply on the details out of respect for Rick's privacy, but at this point he's pretty sure it wouldn't even make a difference if he did tell them what happened. They still wouldn't care, the only part of Rick's misery that bothers them is the part that affects them personally. 

Summer decides-- or is forced, rather-- to make her move when the rest of the family goes out to a movie. Morty protests quietly in the hallway, wanting to stay and watch to make sure nothing bad happens, but Beth and Jerry loudly proclaim Summer needs to stay at home and watch Grandpa Rick, while shoving Morty out forcibly by the shoulders.

Standing in place, Summer sends a few furious texts to her friends telling them that their plans of hanging out in the mall while the others do the movie + pizza thing are cancelled, before turning on her heel, and heading into the living room. 

"It's just you and me, Grandpa," Summer says, stepping over Rick's legs without paying them any mind. She makes her way to the kitchen beyond the living room, flicking the lights on as she loudly and shamelessly goes for the liquor cabinet-- but to be fair, even if Rick was feeling like himself she wouldn't be ashamed of stealing a drink. She only avoided drinking in front of her parents to be polite, "If I have to crash with you tonight, we're getting wasted."

There's the clink of glass, first distantly, then closer, as Summer returns to push Rick upright. She slots herself in next to him, setting down a large glass in front of both of them, then the handle of dark rum that it looked like they'd be drinking from. With a healthy amount poured into the glass in front of herself, she turns to Rick, "Tell me when," She says, and begins to pour, no intention to stop until told to.

Rick had sat up at her direction, but it seems he also has no intention of telling her when, so she stops just shy of the rim of the glass, filling it with more than four times the usual amount that a person would drink out of a glass like this. It occurs to Rick that he hasn't actually had a drink since _well_ before Five died. Since he was killed by the selfsame man in the Handler's office. How long ago was that, even? Time is meaningless anyway, it doesn't matter. 

He picks up the glass and takes a deep mouthful that burns his throat and sits like fire in his stomach. It doesn't even feel good, the burn is usually a comfort, the flavor a welcome sting, but it just tastes like burning all the way into his nose. God, is this what being sober is like? It fucking sucks. 

Belching shallowly, he takes another deep swallow and then just sits back in his nest of blankets, holding the tumbler in both hands in his lap now that there's less of a risk of it spilling, and he just stares forward at the tv. The idea that he needs to be babysat is insulting-- though understandable, he supposes, since he did make an attempt on his own life. At this point, getting up to go hang himself or shoot himself again or something would just be more trouble than it was worth. It's easier to just waste away on the sofa. 

Summer drains her glass in the time it takes Rick to take half of his cup. Of course, her cup had been filled maybe only one-fourth the amount that Rick's had been, if not less than that... but she pours herself another heavy-handed couple of fingers to keep up, slugging back another shot to make up for his second horrible gulp she couldn't begin to compare to.

It's the third shot that has her leaning back deep into the couch, sighing deeply as she tilts her head back into the cushions, closing her eyes briefly. She can feel the liquor doing its job burning through her gut and her throat, can feel the immediate, stupid fuzz it coats over her entire brain with.

"See, I knew you were still in there somewhere," Summer says as she fills his cup a little more, even though it's still about halfway full of hard liquor that no normal human would be able to get through without committing to throwing up for the rest of the night. Summer didn't seem to care. Rick wasn't a 'normal' human, she knew that. "We should go somewhere, you know?" Summer asks Rick excitedly, "We pregame here, whatever, fine, and then we should go to some cool alien club and fucking... go ham. How sick does that sound?" 

It's a little more excited than Summer would normally be about... well, anything, but it did sound like fun to tear shit up with Rick, and the liquor was making her more stupid.

"Raincheck, Sumsum," Rick says, in the same bland tone he's said every work he's spoken in the past six weeks. He can't even muster the energy to shave his face, but she expects him to put pants on and _go out_ somewhere? He doesn't even know where his portal gun _is_ , it's been so long since he touched it. The idea of going out right now, of expending the energy to "go ham" tires him out just thinking about it. Maybe he really finally has gotten properly old in the past six weeks, but the thought of clubbing right now just makes him ache. 

"Uh, yeah right," Summer 'tsk's from Rick's side as she forgoes her glass altogether, drinking directly from the bottle as if it'll help her play catch up if she didn't have to spend so much time pouring shots for herself. It was easier to drink out of, when Rick's refusal makes her mouth twist into an unpleasant, little pout. She tips the bottle up to take another heavy pull from it, leaning over to nudge some of the carefully-stacked blankets off of Rick's lap, trying to pry him free from his cocoon, "Rain check until when? Mom and dad never leave us alone like this, hello? Even Morty is gone, and he always whines to come."

He leans away from her slightly when she starts prodding into his personal space, and lifts his glass for another deep gulp, nearly draining the glass in two swallows. It'd take nearly the whole bottle for him to get even a little buzzed at this point in his alcoholic career, but the drink at least gives his mouth some sensation. 

"I don't know," he says, without even the energy to really be irritable. "I might not feel up for it for a while. Might not feel up for it ever again. You don't--" he sighs, letting his head fall back over the edge of the couch. "You don't understand what I'm-- fucking-- struggling with right now, okay?"

"Uhh, I've been dumped before," Summer says, sounding annoyed, as if Rick is patronizing her by telling her that she doesn't know the details of his feelings considering she never asked. "I know what it's like. I know you gotta bounce back. Hook up with a rebound guy, come on. We could find you someone way younger and hotter."

"I don't _want_ a rebound, Summer," Rick says, his voice a little more firmer than he's managed to harden it in weeks. The idea of 'hooking up' with anyone at this point makes him feel sick. The disrespect to Five's memory alone-- even if he wasn't so depressed he can't even eat a full meal, it would still feel too disrespectful to even consider. Not even Morty, who he's had an established relationship with for nearly the same amount of time he was with Five-- even _preceded_ the one he developed with Five, if not by very long.

Summer, however, can only roll her eyes. As far as she'd known Rick, he was a callous, cynical old bastard who didn't even _believe_ in stuff like love. Hadn't he gone on two different benders with the same hive mind? Where was the romance in fucking an entire civilization of people? _Twice?_ And now that same, reckless, wild man had been neutered by some old dude in a fedora?

It was kind of embarrassing, actually. Summer knew Rick was cooler than that. He _had to be_ cooler than that. 

"Okay, fine, you don't want to rebound, whatever," At the very least, Summer knew what kinds of people other girls were when they were broken up with. Some girls needed to preserve the memory of their last boyfriend, usually because they were the one who got dumped. Still weird to think of Rick as anyone that would _be_ dumped, but... "That's fine too, we can just drink and talk, whatever. And then maybe before they get home we can go out joyriding and knock over mailboxes with baseball bats," Summer leans her head back as she takes another long drink, face pulling into a grimace.

It's not as though being depressed makes Rick _stupid_. He knows what his family is up to. He would have been able to figure it out even if he hadn't heard their failed attempts at whispering their dumbass plans to each other one room over. Appealing to his sense of fun is definitely a step up from whatever bullshit guilt trip Jerry tried to pull, but it's still not enough. What Summer doesn't understand is something it doesn't even occur to her to ask about. 

He could just come out and tell her, but the awkward, shallow condolences he'd get from her would be worse than the ignorance. At least like this she doesn't know she's being insensitive, but he's fully aware of how unequipped she is to handle a grieving person-- and frankly, it's not her responsibility to make him feel better. It's not the responsibility of _any_ of his family to deal with his shit. They should just stay out of his way and let him deal with it at his own pace. But of course that's inconvenient for them, so here they are. 

Sighing, he reaches up to drain the glass and then lean forward to set it on the coffee table. "I wouldn't hold your breath on that, sweet heart," he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and scatter the headache starting to coalesce there just from listening to her talk so dismissively about what happened. 

It's hard to see some of the spark in Rick's gaze as he talks the most he has since it happened, only for his words to dash anything Summer could have hoped to get out of this interaction. Indignation burns in her chest, stupid pride over getting Rick to talk, hurt and dashed in an instant when he said he wouldn't want to cause petty vandalism with her later.

"Why not?" She asks, putting voice to just how petulant she felt, leaning away and folding her arms. There was the hint of a pink cast across her cheeks, not flushed with emotion, but liquor: the Smiths, being of fair skin, had never been able to hold their liquor very well. Frowning, Summer at least meets Rick's gaze with something other than pity in her eye, the stubborn hurt affecting the rest of her mood and twisting her once-cajoling smile into a pout.

Why not, indeed. He could generously interpret that as an invitation for him to actually unload on her, to tell her all the reasons _why not_. Because he barely has the will to live, much less the will to vandalize. Because he can't find joy in the things he used to enjoy, and the process of manufacturing happiness is one he can't summon these days. Because deep down he feels like he doesn't deserve happiness in any form at all because he failed to save Five. 

They're all concepts that are just a few layers too deep for him to anticipate any kind of satisfying understanding from Summer, whose life experiences beyond the few adventures she's tagged along on with Rick and Morty have been pretty ordinary. She's too young to even understand what a soulmate is, much less what it feels like to lose one. The suffocating aloneness of his feelings are the worst part. 

"I just don't want to," he says instead of trying to relate to her. There's no point.

"You just don't want to?" Summer isn't able to keep the disdain from her voice and she doesn't try to. She's never spared Rick before, she had no intention on starting now. "What kind of fifth-grader logic is that? Sometimes you have to do stuff you don't want to do. That's what life is, mom and dad are proof of that." Hell, _Rick_ was proof of that, but she felt like that might be hitting while he was down, and she was annoyed but she wasn't heartless. She still loved Rick, for all he was a harsh, ungrateful bastard.

But her patience did have its limits, and they seem to be made worse by the liquor making her cheeks ever redder than her hair. When she leans forward again, it's to set the considerably-emptier handle on the coffee table, the clattering noise much louder than she'd intended for it to be.

"You know," Summer says, turning to face Rick with a furrowed-browed look of derision, "Sometimes when you do shit you don't want to do, there's like, a reason for it. You get better, or whatever. Growth hurts." She rolls her eyes, at least acknowledging how cliche it was as she said it.

Unfortunately for her, Rick's patience is coming up short very fast as well. Her patronizing tone is enough to make his skin crawl, and she's just lucky he doesn't have the energy to fully snap at her. Instead, he just gives her a glare that could wither flowers from the corner of his eye. 

"Doing shit you don't wanna do is a bullshit life lesson bitter adults give kids who call it like they see it when they look at the world and point out the parts that suck ass like taxes or health care or marriage, cause they don't have the power to change it, and if _they_ have to deal with it, they're gonna make damn sure their kids do too. There's nothing that pisses off adults more than when kids figure out something faster or easier or better than they had to do it," he says, his voice ice cold. "That _doesn't_ apply to me not wanting to go on some weaksauce bender with you because you don't think I'm _fun enough_ anymore. Your opinion of me doesn't mean shit, understand? Get out of my face."

"Augh!" Summer says with a furious yowl, pushing out and away from the sofa, pulling herself unsteadily to her feet, "You don't get to act like a freaking 12 year old and then lecture me on what adults are like!" She snaps, even if she... had sort of started it. 

She looks down at Rick, flipping her hair in an infuriatingly self-important way. Pouting. She was _pouting_. "By the way, grandpa, I know the reason you just don't wanna move on and do other fun shit is because you're trying to keep yourself close to him and making new memories makes you feel more distant. I'm not _stupid_ ," Summer says, voice sounding cold and clipped. She was close to understanding, a feat considering the depth of her relationships could often be measured in centimeters, "But it _is_ stupid that you're sitting here holding a stupid candle for a guy who doesn't want anything to do with you anymore." 

Summer grabs Rick's glass and walks it, her own glass, and the bottle all back to the kitchen, "I'm ordering a pizza with mom's credit card by the way. You don't have to eat any if it's going to break you out in hives or whatever."

Summer doesn't get a reply, and figures it's just because her grandpa is pouting, but when she comes back out into the living room to try and wrestle a topping preference out of him, she finds that he isn't even there anymore. The TV is still on, but his blanket nest has been opened and left behind like the shed skin of a snake, and her grandpa is missing. 

There's a brief, nearly self-aware flash of panic in her as she thinks for just one moment that maybe she actually _had_ pushed him too far, and the fear that her family would come back to find out that Grandpa Rick had made another attempt on his life while he was supposed to be under her watch fills her with a very real sense of dread. She knows he didn't go to the garage through the house because she was in the kitchen, so she heads to the end of the hall instead, and when she tries the door knob on Rick's bedroom door, she finds it locked. 

Rick hears the attempt, and glances up at the jiggle of the knob from where he'd relocated to the edge of his cot, hanging his head heavily in his hands. He can't stand to be around her, not while she's like this, not while she's making these pathetic attempts to console him, only just barely veiling the truth that she's just bored of having to deal with her grandpa not being "fun" anymore. Maybe he's _not_ fun anymore. Maybe he'll never be _fun_ again. 

It occurs to him that the easiest thing to do might be to just leave the universe entirely. There's nothing stopping him from blowing the dust off the portal gun and ditching this place for an entirely new universe. Maybe he could even find one where _everyone_ in the world has clinical depression. There's bound to be a few out there, and then maybe his family would get off his fucking case. It seems drastic, though-- maybe as a last resort. 

"What part of 'get out of my face' was confusing?" he shouts at Summer through the door. 

"Augh! You _suck!"_ Inebriation and frustration reach an ugly head as Summer, on the other side of the door, actually kicks it a little before marching off, phone in hand, fingers furiously flying across the screen. "You know if I wanted _two_ shitty little brothers, I would've stopped kicking dad in the nuts when I was a kid!" She adds, a comparison to Morty a grave insult, indeed.

It's not how the night was supposed to go. They were supposed to loosen up with some talking. Move onto some deeper stuff, then she was supposed to be so zany and interesting and cool that he _had to_ hang out with her. It was supposed to teach him the value of life or something, like Summer was some fucking expert on the topic.

Summer perches in the kitchen texting and scrolling through social media aimlessly as she tries to be grabbed by anything, guilt sitting like an ugly weight in her chest. She looks up at every slight noise, every quiet shuffle or scrape, hoping it's Rick returning to the living room so they can keep arguing, or make up, or something that isn't the tense, failure-filled atmosphere she'd created for herself in her own home.

The pizza comes. She eats, still half-standing at the kitchen island, hovering in case Rick needed her, or she heard a suspicious sound-- something, anything to indicate she'd fucked up, or she was needed. The longer she goes without a sound from her grandpa, the worse she feels: and in a rare moment of introspection, she wonders if maybe she deserved it, for how she'd acted. 

Worse still, there seems to be a permanent consequence for her actions-- Rick doesn't come back out of his room again, after that. His nest has been officially abandoned in the living room, which Beth cleans up within the hour when they all return from the movies, and while Summer doesn't tell them what happened while they were gone, Morty knows Rick well enough to know he wouldn't have retreated for no reason, even if the others seem secretly glad that he's not depressed in plain sight anymore, at least. 

Summer has officially checked out of the "Rescue Rick" attempt because of whatever happened that night, but despite Morty's probing, she won't talk about it. Jerry was never really invested to begin with, and so it really fell to Beth, if you asked Beth, since the whole family knew Morty couldn't be trusted to do most things right. It would take adult intervention to get Rick back on his feet, and so after enjoying a few days of peace in the living room without her father's sulking, the guilt finally gets the better of her and she finds herself at his door. 

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she finally plucks up enough courage to clear her throat, and reach out and knock on the door sharply, just twice, with a call of "Dad?"

Rick, from within, sighs. He knew his sanctuary would be disrupted eventually. He'd had the decency to haul his cookies out of the way of where his family had to look at him, and still they go out of their way to intrude on his space. Without getting up off his bed, or even sitting up at all, he mutes his own TV with the push of a remote button and shouts back through the door, "What?"

"Hey, do you wanna open the door so we can talk?" Beth asks the door, clearing her throat as she speaks up to try and speak clearer, so she could be heard despite barrier between them. She presses her hand against the unfeeling door, hating talking to the wall and unable to bring herself to talk through it more than she had to-- it was demoralizing, talking to a door. 

When the door doesn't immediately open, Beth clears her throat like she's seeing something unpleasant, leaning against the door slightly with her torso, "It'd be really nice to see you," Beth tries, voice superficially sweet, almost naive sounding, "Just to check in, you know--"

Rick finally sits up and hangs his head in his hands with a sigh. He could say no. The door was locked, and what would she do, pick it? _Cry?_ He hates himself for it, but there's a tiny, insufferable sliver of affection buried somewhere lost down inside him. She's not his original Beth-- hell, she's not even the first Beth he's had, but across all universes, all Beths are his daughter. 

So he gives her an inch. Whether she'll take advantage of that like usual remains to be seen, but he'll give her this inch. She hears his cot springs creak, and then the sound of the door lock unlatching, before he opens it a couple inches to look at her. He clearly has no intention of standing aside and inviting her inside, or coming out of his room to meet her, he just stands resolutely in his doorway, filling it from top to bottom. 

"What," he says again.

Beth can't help but feel a little proud of herself when she seems the familiar form of her father filling the space that the door didn't. No, it wasn't a lot. It wasn't even anything significant. He hadn't asked her to take a seat on his cot... but he also was there, in the flesh, looking down on her with those hollow black eyes and at least letting her see him like she'd said she'd wanted to in the first place, to 'check in'.

Eagerly taking the provided inch, Beth's fingers curl around the door itself, taking another mile as she prevents him from shutting the door, even if he'd tried to. "It's been real quiet without you out and about, dad," Beth says nicely, "Morty's been worried sick about you, we all have been. What do you think we could do to try and get you out of there more often, huh?" Beth asks sweetly, like she was talking to a problem child about a bad habit, not someone in a hopeless depressive episode.

"Nothing," Rick answers flatly. "I don't want to come out. Good talk."

He tries to shut the door, but predictably, she pushes against it. He could slam the door, he could take off her fucking fingers. He's stronger than her by a staggering margin-- but in spite of everything, in spite of his misery, he can't bring himself to outright hurt her like that, and not only because he can't summon the energy for such an outburst. He just sighs, instead, and stares down at her big puppy eyes. 

"Just leave me alone," he adds. "I just need time."

"I know, I know," Beth says simperingly, as if she _did_ know. Like she had ever really had a finger on the pulse of what he'd needed-- as far as Beth was concerned, her making him a plate optimistically for dinner every night _was_ her looking out for what was best for him, and made her some sort of expert.

Leaning further in, Beth risks raising her hand so her knuckles can brush the inside of Rick's wrist, a very tactile ploy for affection and attention, looking up at Rick through her lashes. She really is pulling out all the stops, like a little girl who wanted something from daddy. She very much is that in some ways, to this day. 

"Remember when I was a little girl? You were always so good at making me at least feel like things were going to be okay. I just want to do that for you." It sounds like something out of a soap opera. 

Oh, but if Rick had the energy to roll his eyes. Instead he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose with a sigh. He knows she just wants things to go back to normal, he knows how incredibly unpleasant his family has found his "moods" as of late, but if it were as easy as snapping back into himself after a little guilt trip, he would have been cured by Jerry's lackluster effort a few days ago.

"That's bullshit and we both know it," he says flatly, shutting down her simpering tone and moving his hand on the door a little farther away from hers, avoiding her touch completely. "I was a bad father when you were little, and I'm still a bad father now. I don't need your pity or your sympathy, or your guilt trips. I just need space."

"I'm not guilting you!" Beth says, far too quickly to be completely devoid of some guilty implications. It clearly hadn't been too far from her head, to reply so quickly and insistently. But she does stop with the stupid, syrupy-high pitched voice, crossing her arms over her chest instead as she looks at her father through the door. The worried little frown on her face persists, though, hip jutting to the side as she leans into his door frame.

It's just unfortunate that she doesn't back down. She has her father's stubbornness, after all. "I'm just saying, it'd be nice if you just got back to your old self, dad, that's all I want for you. No matter what you say I'm _going to_ feel sympathy because you're my dad and you lost someone close to you. You might feel better if you just come be with the family again and stopped moping all by yourself."

There's no doubt in Rick's mind that if he told her what happened, all he'd get from her is a simpering 'aw I'm so sorry for your loss' that he couldn't withstand. Hearing platitudes from one person would feel like such a diminishing of the feeling inside of him. The entire fucking multiverse should fall to its knees and mourn with Rick, it lost such an incredible person-- but wholly expectedly, life carries on without Five, as if it never cared about him in the first place. Wholly expectedly, it's up to Rick alone to miss him-- and even to remember him at all.

"Pass," he says finally. 

"You're just going to _pass_ on your whole family?" Beth continues, indignance rising in her tone as her attempts continue to fail, flustering and frustrating her. She's never been very good ad handling rejection.

"Yeah, I am," Rick stands his ground, unshaken by her anger. "Just like when you were little, that's what you were gonna say next, right? Let's speed this along. I'd say I had more important things to do when you were little, you'd say ' _more important than me?_ ' I'd say something-- fucking clever and mean, whatever, and you'd storm off to day drink half a bottle of wine. Like father like daughter. Mazel tov."

Without another word, he slams the door in her face, causing her to stagger back, and stomp a foot on the ground as she hears the lock click back into place. "I don't know why I bother!" she shouts through the door. "Somehow I keep forgetting what an asshole you are!"

He is right about the day drinking, though. And she doesn't try to connect with him again, after that. 

In a matter of just a couple more days, it's like everyone else in the Smith family just fucking _forgot_ why they were worried about Rick, in the first place. His reclusiveness, his locked door, all it does is serve to fray Morty's nerves. At least in the living room he could pass through every few hours and still see Rick with his own two eyes and confirm that he's still alive, but now he only sees him once a day when he brings his dinner plate to his door, and has to hold his breath and pray his grandpa will answer this time when he knocks, too. 

Every day when he hands off dinner, he clears away yesterday's dinner at the same time, and finds it hardly eaten. Sometimes multiple days will pass before there's even a sign that he pushed dinner around the plate at all, and all it seems to earn him is annoyance from Beth, who scrapes the congealed leftovers into the trash while complaining about throwing away money-- as if that fucking matters. 

Morty has to watch as the rest of his family's lives seem to carry on uninterrupted by their own family member's crippling depression. Sure, none of their lives were ever really impacted daily by Rick in the first place, they only ever got involved when Rick's plans intersected with their routines directly. It just went to prove that they never really cared about Rick's feelings whatsoever, all they wanted was for him to stop being so depressed in plain sight so they could get back to their lives as usual, guilt-free. So it made sense that they didn't seem all that disrupted by Rick's absence, but Morty can't possibly relate. Without Rick hovering around injecting himself forcefully into Morty's life, his daily schedule has turned downright... normal. 

This is the normalcy he always feels like he's missing, when Rick has dragged him around too many days in a row, pushed him too far for too long. It's the normalcy that he thinks he craves, the mundane routine of going to school, talking to normal people about normal problems, just being a normal kid. Now that he's had it every day for weeks straight, it feels like a slow, painful death. 

So it's embarrassing, how strongly he reacts when he hears Rick's door open for the first time in more than a month. Rick has his own watercloset attached to his room, so he doesn't even need to come out of his room to go to the bathroom-- so his family really just hasn't seen his face in over a month. They all seem to be thriving in his absence, which only serves to boil Morty's blood all the worse. He'd heard Rick call his family ungrateful a thousand times before and it always just sounded like the same white noise as the rest of his complaining, but actually seeing the way they gleefully live their lives without Rick, as if they would have been happier if he'd just died in that garage, after all... 

Well, it has him leaping off the couch when he hears Rick's door open, and he watches the man shuffle into the kitchen. He's the only one who sees any of Rick whatsoever, when he brings him his daily meal, so the shift into an even thinner, more gaunt and bedraggled man than he's ever looked before has been so gradual for him he didn't notice, but he hears Jerry make a repulsed noise from somewhere behind him on the couch when he catches sight of the pale, shadowed ghost of his former self Rick has become. 

Rick doesn't even acknowledge the rest of his family as he enters the kitchen. For the first time in months he actually finds himself with a craving, which he supposes should be a good sign at this point, the fact that he's seeking whatever scrap of joy he can get his hands on. But there's no pleasure in the hiss-and-pop of the soda can he grabs from the fridge, no satisfaction in bending back the tab until it snaps off and dropping it into the full can with a click. He'd hoped to spark at least a little interest within himself, but he's just gotten so used to being catatonic that he feels nary a flutter.

"H-Hey, Rick," Morty says from where he hovered between the living room and the kitchen. It was disgusting, how little he could feel interest at his back, as if this wasn't the momentous occasion it was. Summer sat, texting disinterestedly behind him, and next to her on the sofa was Jerry who only turned the volume up one or two ticks higher. Whether it was to drown out any potential conversation or to offer them privacy, Morty knew he couldn't be too optimistic.

So he slips further into the kitchen with a dirty look thrown over his shoulder at his family in the living room, a look they do not see or acknowledge, staring blandly ahead at the television, while Morty could not be more focused on Rick in front of him: although just looking at him was sad enough. 

He looked like he wasn't present. Some part of Rick had to be, or he would have never been able to leave his garage in the first place, but Morty saw nothing of his grandfather in the hollow muteness of his eyes. He barely recognized the shell that stood before him now, lifelessly bringing a soda to his lips and drinking without sound. If Morty couldn't see the bobbing of his throat he wouldn't even think Rick was drinking at all, just holding the can to his mouth and dropping it again.

Hesitating, Morty takes another step forward, trying to put himself directly in Rick's way so he _had to_ acknowledge his presence... but still, he knew better than to think Rick would ever be _forced_ into doing anything. "It... It's good seeing you out here, Rick. I was starting to wonder if I'd ever see you again. You... you want something to eat with that soda? Mom has leftovers from last night, I don't think you ate yours..."

Rick sighs softly. He knew he had to expect seeing some of his family if he left his room-- and on an unconscious level, maybe he kind of _hoped_ to. He'd been locked up in his room for so long, his only company the tiny TV at the foot of his bed, that maybe he craved a little bit of human interaction. He's usually better at lying to himself, but he's so beaten down that he can't even convince himself that he wasn't hoping for a little bit of attention, if he made an appearance for the first time in weeks. It doesn't surprise him whatsoever that Morty is the only one who shows interest. 

"Not hungry," he says, passing the can of soda off to Morty. He doesn't even want it anymore, the carbonation feels too intense in his mouth after so long without.

Morty takes it, but he refuses to be cowed. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, Morty pours the can on the side of the rim, effectively helping to calm some of the worst of the carbonation, before he hands it back to Rick with a hopeful, little smile, like such a small kindness could do anything to bridge the gap that had formed between them over the weeks, the months that had passed by while Rick was slipping further and further into his depression. He comes to the counter now, only about a foot between him and his grandfather. He wanted nothing more than to hug him, to be hugged by him in turn. He knew better than to say such a thing to him, though, knowing what would make him retreat faster than anything else.

"Maybe you should try eating anyway. Uh... y-you're really thin, Rick, even a little bite would help loads, I bet. You--you wanna sit down? I can make it for you, it doesn't bother me!" He's so painfully obvious with his desperation, practically tripping over himself just for the opportunity to serve.

Rick feels a flicker of something in his chest, at the pitiful display-- a feeling he can't quite recognize, because it's been so long since he's felt _anything_ that he's become entirely unfamiliar with emotions, but he knows it doesn't feel _good_. Something like guilt maybe, discomfort, displeasure, whatever it was that Beth _tried_ to inspire within him weeks ago. He knows he doesn't like the way it makes him feel, to see Morty so frantic to stretch this interaction as long as he can, to soak up as much of Rick's presence like a thirsty sponge as he can possibly get ahold of. 

He sighs again, and sets the glass on the counter, reaching up to rub his face. He could just go back into his room without a word and close his door, lock Morty back out of his life along with the rest of his family-- but to what end? Just go back into his room and watch more TV as he wastes away on his cot, until what, he dies again, this time of malnutrition? Somehow, contrary to how miserable he feels, he's _too_ depressed to die-- just because he lacks so much energy and motivation that he can't even bring himself to gather enough momentum to make another attempt. He would have, by now. 

He knows that if he could even grab hold of a shred of his former self, the indignity of carrying on just for the sake of carrying on would kick him into gear, but he can't even bring himself to care about how pathetic he looks. How pathetic he _is._

But Morty's trying. He looks up again, at the limitless desperation in the boy, shining in his eyes. How he's maintained the energy to still _care_ this much about Rick after so many weeks without him, after such a long, uninterrupted period of time to just be himself without Rick getting in the way or making demands of him that Morty insists he resents, Rick will never understand. There's an old, tired flicker of affection somewhere deep, deep under the gloom in his chest that has something unsticking just long enough for him to give a single nod. 

"Okay, Morty," he mutters, and sits tiredly at the island counter. "Sure."

Morty can basically feel his entire chest light up at that little acquisition, that little allowance. Rick sits at the counter, and it suddenly feels like the weight of Rick's entire life weighs in the balance. Morty _has to_ make this interaction good. He has to make it worth it for Rick to come out of his room every once in a while. First things first he decides not to waste any time. He quickly goes to the fridge, pulling out the tupperware containers of Beth's best leftovers from the past few days.

A few beeps of the microwave later and Rick's plate of food is happily whirring away, warming up, even as Morty opens up a container of macaroni salad and sets it on the counter, like there was a chance of Rick picking at it while they waited for the food to cook. 

"You know, Rick," Morty says as he folds a paper napkin in half just to give his hands something to fiddle with, eyes diverted to the task, "If you ever want to just talk, or just see someone, um-- you're welcome to come hang out with me, whenever you want. I-I still suck at school, nothing's coming outta that, and I just come home and hang out on the computer, so-- I'm just upstairs. We can talk, or not talk--"

The microwave beeps, interrupting Morty's thought process, and he quickly glances behind him, then back at Rick as if looking away from the older man would prompt him to disappear like a fucking ghost. He doesn't, though, thank god, and Morty crosses the kitchen to grab the hot plate, setting it down in front of Rick and nudging his glass back toward him, as well as the napkin and utensils he'd set beside Rick. 

"It's good, the-- the meatloaf. Mom put a different kind of barbecue sauce on it 'cause the store was out and Summer and I like it better. Dad complained, but," He gives Rick a look, expressing his disdain for Jerry.

Normally Rick would revel in the opportunity to shit on Jerry with Morty, one of their favorite pastimes, but he still can't summon even a smile as he cuts a bite off the meatloaf, just for the sake of satisfying the boy. Maybe step one to fighting depression is going out of his way to do things for the sake of other people, to step an inch outside of the selfish, miserable bubble that had closed around him like a vice. The meatloaf just tastes like ash in his mouth, but he chews and swallows a single bite regardless, with Morty watching him as if that one bite was the difference between his life and death. 

"I don't want to talk, Morty," he says tiredly, because that much is true at least. For as hard as Morty is trying, he knows the boy can't relate. He'd have better luck talking to and getting meaningful advice out of a teddy ruckspin. 

For a second Morty nods, and with a dejected look appears to actually take Rick's exhausted words to heart. Still worried about how he can bend in half to do whatever Rick wants, as if whatever Rick wants is the best thing. It only takes a minute or two of Morty's accepting silence before he can't stand it again, and he breaks it. 

"Don't take this the wrong way, Rick, but maybe you should," eyes focused on the counter top in front of him, Morty avoids looking at Rick, avoids doing anything that would make this an aggressive confrontation instead of the concerned suggestion of someone who gave a shit. Morty swallows, his tongue feeling too big for his suddenly-dry mouth, hating how fast he could feel his pulse going. "S-Sometimes you just have to talk about things to get it out of you. So it doesn't..." Eat you up inside. Or outside. Or both. Rick's depression looked like it was just eating him, plain and simple. Frowning, Morty chances a glance up at Rick, mouth set in a worried frown, "I know I don't get it, Rick. But you don't have to talk about it to make me get it, you just have to talk about it."

An ugly feeling flares in Rick's chest as Morty carries on, something he knows the boy is wholly unprepared for and undeserving of-- but when has that ever stopped him? He knows it's just a culmination of the rest of their family's lackluster attempts to rouse him out of his depressed stupor, layering one on top of the other, and now poor Morty is here, the well-meaning straw to break the camel's back. He pushes away from the counter with a scrape of stool legs on the floor, loud and sudden enough that Morty flinches, and Rick can hear now that the TV in the living room has been muted, as the rest of the family eavesdrops on the conversation. That only makes his blood boil hotter, realizing his entire family is witness to Morty telling Rick what he _has to do,_ like he has any fucking right. 

"Is that what I have to do, Morty?" he says coldly as he stands up. "Thanks so much for your wisdom, I dunno what I would have done without you."

Morty looks devastated when his plan backfires so spectacularly. It didn't matter what he said, Morty would have said something wrong. It stings and aches deep in his chest, and he looks up at Rick with an almost hopeless expression, not cowing in the face of his own failure, or scrambling to cover his own tracks.... because Rick wasn't thinking clearly. He wasn't thinking at all. It didn't take a genius to know that hadn't been what Morty had been saying, to realize Morty wasn't saying Rick _had to_ do anything. But Rick wanted to be hurt. He wanted to be upset. He'd said it himself, he didn't want to talk. So he acted out to get out of it. 

A deep ache blooming under Morty's ribs is strong enough to make him feel nauseous, and he shakes his head as he looks back to the counter top, "That's not what I meant, Rick," he yelps, hearing how hopeless he sounds and already knowing that won't matter, either. "You going back to your room?" He already knows the answer to that, too.

"Enjoying the fucking show?" Rick's voice comes out like a knife, but Morty realizes it's not directed at him, as he follows Rick's gaze through the archway into the living room, where the rest of the Smith family scrambles very quickly to pretend like they aren't listening in, the TV miraculously and suddenly unmuting, Summer's eyes going back down to her phone, and it only angers Rick more to see them acting like they think they can fool him. As if depression turned him into an idiot. 

He feels his whole chest and stomach ache with bile. Anger is the most _anything_ he's felt in so long, that it almost feels good to sink into it. "I know what you've all been trying to do. I know you want me to just go back to normal so you can all stop having to feel guilty that you aren't giving more of a shit about anyone but yourselves. You want grandpa back to his old self so you can go back to having someone in the family you can point to real fucking easy who's worse than you. Now that I'm a sad fucking ugly empty shell you've got no one to compare yourselves to, and it makes you uncomfortable-- I'm not a fucking idiot."

"Dad, that's not fair--" Beth starts, but Rick railroads right past her. 

"What's not FAIR is that none of you have even fucking ASKED what happened!" he roars.

"We _know_ what happened--" Summer protests, but again Rick barrels ahead. 

"You don't have a clue! You all think I got _dumped_ by Five and I'm sulking like a fucking teenager. It hasn't crossed any of your minds once that not a single one of you felt like enough of a reason to _keep going_ after losing him! Let it fucking sink into your smooth, paramecium brains that NONE of you were worth staying alive for! I'd say I hope it makes you question the way we function, but if anyone in this family was capable of an ounce of fucking introspection about the way our actions affect anyone else, you would have taken a second to find out that Five DIED!" It's an anger that's been a long time coming, one that's been festering deep down inside him for months now, and when Rick blasts past his family and slams his bedroom door closed, the house is dead silent in his absence. 

Morty feels his stomach drop to his feet as his heart plummets through the floor. He can only stare after Rick, shocked to silence in the aftermath of the outburst, a quagmire of feelings battling in his chest. Angry was _good_ , right? When compared to the bland neutrality of the past few months, anger was much better to see in retrospect. Of course, the subject of that anger was less so, Rick's words making Morty feel small and not even daring to guess how his family felt. 

He peeks over at them after a second, entire body braced and on edge, waiting for the fallout that he can't even predict. "Wh-What did you guys _do_ when you talked to him?" Morty asks desperately, looking to his family with wide eyes.

"Like _you_ did any better," Beth defensively shoots back immediately. " _I_ didn't make him blow up like that. For fuck's sake, even _Jerry_ didn't make him blow up like that."

"Some nerve, trying to blame this on us," Jerry agrees. "I gave him solid advice, and he didn't yell once."

"He wasn't yelling at _me_ , he was yelling at _you_ guys!" Morty snaps, scowling over at the living room.

"Uh, yeah, he was pissed at us for listening but he was pissed at _you_ for existing," Summer sneers, barely taking her eyes off her phone when she does, "When were you going to tell us Five _died,_ turdbrain?" It was a stab in the dark, a mostly baseless accusation. She has no real way of knowing that Morty knew, just an assumption that he did because he's always been the most wrapped up in Grandpa Rick's shit. But Morty's silence in the next few second confirms her suspicion, and all eyes turn towards him. 

"Wait," Beth grabs the remote and turns the TV off. "You _knew_ Five died, and you let us go all this time thinking he was sad over a break up? Why would you do that to us, Morty? We would have been _way_ more sympathetic if we knew."

"You really set us up to fail," Jerry joins in, jumping at the chance to blame everything on Morty.

"Way to be a team player," Summer rolls her eyes. 

Astonishment knits in Morty's brow as he looks from family member to family member, each more than happy to blame him for fucking up themselves. "I didn't think I had to say it!" Morty says, sounding exasperated, "Y-You really think Rick would act like this 'cause he was _dumped?_ H-He hasn't even talked in a month! He hasn't eaten in just as long, you're-- you guys really-- you're _really_ something--"

It was indignation that made his chest burn so, frustration and anger burning and ugly hole in his chest. How dare they act like Morty was the issue, here. How dare they act like they had failed only because Morty hadn't told then in explicit terms exactly what was wrong with Rick. As if it should have made a difference, as if there was a required level of trauma for their own family member to go through before they would expend enough of a consistent effort to care about his wellbeing that it could have done Rick some good. As if Morty is somehow to blame for their abhorrent level of selfish indifference. 

"How were we to know any different if you didn't tell us?" Beth argues. " _Rick_ didn't say anything when we assumed he got dumped, and we definitely said that out loud where he could hear us. So if he didn't correct us, how should we have known? We aren't _mind readers_ , Morty. We could have fixed him by now if you'd actually told us what we were up against."

A groan starts in Morty's chest, growing in volume as he moans, " _AaaaHHH!_ No you wouldn't!" Morty snaps, able to feel the surprise ripple through his family when he bites back. They always act surprised when Morty talks back, even if he had been doing it more and more the longer he spent with Rick. He tugs at his shirt, fingers fisting in his hair and pulling through to sharpen his focus, eyes narrowing into slits. 

"D-Don't you get it? If you guys could have helped him at all, you would have! Y-you would've been able to tell he wasn't just crying over a-a stupid break up! A _blind_ man could've seen that! A-A fucking _idiot_ could see that! Don't blame me 'cause you don't know the first thing about having fucking empathy or making someone feel better, especially when that someone is grandpa!" It isn't entirely fair for Morty to say that, considering _he_ doesn't know how to make Rick feel better either.

But he knows who might.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i included art of my original interpretation of birdperson because i like to think of him being a little bit more alien and a little less like a dude in a costume, and there are a couple references to his anatomy so i thought i might as well!

It had been quite a process, piecing Birdperson back together again, after he'd been torn to pieces and repurposed as a cyborg killer. Morty remembers how tirelessly Rick worked to repair him, to mend him not only in body but in mind, too. Birdperson had been so grief-stricken by the time Rick fixed him, that he swore to come to his aid whenever he called, but said he would need to return to Birdworld to atone for what had become of him on his own terms. 

Luckily, he left behind a very easy way to contact him-- a simple pangalactic device that basically worked like facetime. It took Morty some time to dig through the garage in order to find it, tucked away for safekeeping behind Rick's desk, where nobody in his family could find it and break it or get rid of it. He blows the dust off the screen and pulls the cord out of the back, plugging it into the wall so it can charge up, and when the screen lights up, he sets it on its stand so it's pointing directly at him, and hits the only button available, to put the call through. 

He stands there for a while as the jazzy ringtone chimes, and chimes, and chimes, and _chimes_. It goes on for so long that he actually starts to fear that something might have happened to Birdperson-- or maybe it had just been long enough since then that BP figured Rick wouldn't call him, and he got rid of the device on his end. 

But just as he was getting ready to hit the hang up button, the screen suddenly switches from the buffering wheel to Birdperson's face, much too close to the camera from an unflattering low angle that lets Morty see right up his nostrils. 

"Rick, is that you?" he says, his voice blowing out the mic, it's so close to the input. 

Morty winces immediately, scrambling to find the volume and turn it down before Rick could hear what he was up to. The last thing he needed was for this conversation to go poorly, after so many had before it. Not saying anything, Morty waits in silence to make sure he was truly unheard and alone, before clearing his throat, "N-No, Birdperson, it's me-- It's Morty," He half-whispers, into the mic, though, so he should be audible. 

"Morty," Birdperson greets. "I was expecting Rick."

"S-Something's up with Rick, BP. It's... It's really bad, I don't know what to do, or-- or what to say. I've tried everything to fix him but he-- he won't listen to me," the words tumble out of Morty unbidden, a slurry of desperation, stumbling over himself.

Picking up on the strangled panic and pain in Morty's voice, Birdperson hums softly. "I see. Explain to me what the problem is."

Bouncing his leg, Morty tries to block out whatever sound he can manage, keeping one eye on the door, straining to hear anything moving in the house, any indication that they might be interrupted. "I don't know what Rick told you... uhh-- jeez, he, okay-- Rick was in love with this guy named Five and he died a while ago, and since then Rick's been-- he's-- h-he's not himself, you know?"

"Five _died?"_ Birdperson sits up straighter, and all the feathers on his ruff poof up in surprise. Morty actually feels something anxious inside him unspool a bit in relief when the other man doesn't seem to need as much explanation as he was afraid he'd have to get into, when he didn't know how much time he could steal in the garage to begin with. Birdperson's expression creases with more concern-- more _­emotion_ , frankly, than Morty's ever seen on his face before. "I see. That is very serious. How long ago did this happen?"

"A-About three.... three months?" Morty asks, heart racing in his chest. It solidifies something in his own brain, too: if Rick had told Birdperson about Five, it really must have been serious. "It's been rough, BP We can barely get him to eat, he doesn't talk at all, he won't listen to any of us..." Morty tugs at his shirt, "Jesus, you're the only one I think might be able to talk to him at all, man."

"Do you have access to his portal gun?" Birdperson asks, standing up off his sofa and setting his device up on the kitchen counter so he can tap a few numbers onto the screen, sending them off to Morty in a text message popup-- coordinates, and a dimension designation, just in case Morty forgot since the last time he visited Birdworld. 

Morty does have access, thankfully. It hasn't been touched in months, left unsupervised in Rick's garage, just another symptom of his depression. The piece of technology he looks after with the most intense care, just cast aside without a thought. He quickly opens a portal, and then steps aside to make room for the bird as he steps through and into the garage. Morty forgot how tall he is. 

"Where is he?" Birdperson asks, his wings flexing on his back, his feathers all puffed up and agitated with worry. "Take me to him."

Suddenly everything feels _actionable_ again. With Birdperson at his side, he feels like at least he has something he can pull out of his hat. Scrambling to disconnect the call, Morty cranes his head up to look at Birdperson, nodding frantically at the request, "He's-- yeah, yeah, yeah, come here--"

Half-jumping, half-lurching to the door, Morty yanks it open and holds it open for Birdperson before leading him to the living room, where Rick had once again posted up. The only time he bothered doing this nowadays was when everyone else was gone at work or school or both, leaving them blissfully alone.

Morty clears his throat, hesitating behind the wall, "Uh, R-Rick? You have someone here for you," He says tentatively, glancing over his shoulder at Birdperson behind him.

When Rick doesn't respond except with a slight sagging of his shoulders, Birdperson steps forward, his talons scraping on the hardwood floor. "Rick," he says, and just the sound of his voice _immediately_ gets Rick's attention. His head whips around to look up at his friend with wide, surprised eyes, and then his gaze flicks past him to Morty, who is standing behind him and wringing his hands together anxiously, nearly hidden behind the bulk of the bird's grey wings. 

"BP, what the hell--" Rick starts, but Birdperson continues before Rick has a chance to freak out, or worse, lash out at Morty for calling upon him in the first place. 

"Morty has informed me that your spirit-partner passed away," he says, standing just behind the sofa as Rick turns around completely, kneeling on the couch cushions, still looking lost and confused. "This is grave news."

Right before Morty's eyes, it's like a miracle unfolds. Something unlatches inside Rick, so powerfully and suddenly that Morty can _watch_ it happen. His tired eyes go glassy and shiny, his jaw sets so firmly it trembles, and his expression twists into something between grief and fury. 

"He went back, BP," Rick says. There's no point in chastising Morty for resorting to calling Birdperson. BP's already here, he already knows. He wasn't going to bother the poor bird with his problems, he was the whole reason Birdperson died and was twisted up to begin with. BP, like so many others, were better off without him. "He went back for his family and he fucking _failed_." 

His voice cracks on the word and when he hangs his head, Birdperson steps up to the back of the sofa, and cradles Rick's head delicately in his two giant, clawed hands, hugging him against his body. He glances behind him at Morty and then jerks his head towards the couch, indicating for the boy to close in and join in the mourning. 

And Morty hops to do just that. Honestly, he doesn't know if he has a _right_ to. Rick had made it clear that Morty could never understand his relationship with Five. He'd made it clear that this was something that was just completely beyond Morty, beyond his capacity, beyond his ability-- so did that mean that mourning him was also outside of his ability? The last thing Morty wanted was to make things worse, as he had seemed to do every single goddamn step of the way so far.

But Morty's entire body aches he wants to help so bad. He closes in, worry be damned, and circles around to climb onto the couch. Up close he can see the way Rick's shoulders have sagged into Birdperson's belly, the way his entire body seems to have gone limp and boneless, instead of stoic and hard as he'd spent the last 3 months. Raising his hand, Morty slips it into Rick's, pressing his cheek to Rick's side and curling his arm around his waist. He doesn't say anything. He didn't dare risk it.

"He _failed_ , BP. I went to his dimension to find him, and it was all fucking ash, he _failed_. After everything, after how hard we fought--" Rick's voice is muffled, but Morty can hear him-- and more importantly, he doesn't pull away from the boy when he offers affection. 

"It does not seem possible," Birdperson says. "He is a formidable warrior."

"I know, I fucking _know_ ," Rick sobs, anguished, furious, grieving. 

"The griefstone inside of you has grown into a tree," Birdperson continues, raking his talons through Rick's hair soothingly, so gentle with him despite his size and strength. 

Rick gasps, "It's a fucking _forest_."

Disentangling from him for just a moment, Birdperson circles the couch so he can sit down, tucking his tailfeathers and wings aside so he can sit on the cushion side-saddle, inviting Rick into the circle of his arms. Rick wouldn't ever dream of being vulnerable in front of Morty if he hadn't just come off of the most harrowing three months of his life. Even losing Dianne hadn't been this rough because he'd just been alone, he had no one to be accountable to, no one to be responsible for, and no one expecting him to recover from the grief on a convenient timeline. He crawls right into his friend's space and drapes against him like a wet blanket, and Birdperson hooks his chin on top of the smaller man's head. 

He looks like a completely different person now. He'd rejected every stilted attempt at connection from his family for so many weeks that seeing him like this is jarring, for Morty. Reminded that his grandpa actually has human emotion and the capability to express it, especially with such volume and intensity leaves Morty only able to watch, stunned, as Birdperson cradles him like a child. 

"There is no pain worse than losing a spirit-partner," Birdperson says, and Morty realizes the words are more for his benefit, than Rick's. Birdperson's eyes are focused on Morty's face-- and it's not like Rick needs an explanation of his own pain. "Imagine if someone took your heart from your chest, but you survived. You now live your life without blood in your veins. There is no beating in your chest. You are cold, and stiff, and heavy. You feel in your body that you know you are meant to die, you know in your body that you are not meant to survive this."

Morty can't help but feel a little chastised by the remark. Or at the very least a bit scolded. It wasn't like Morty didn't know it was serious... he wasn't _that_ stupid. He knew on a surface level that Rick's relationship with Five was serious, even if he didn't know what his grandpa saw in the guy, and he knew with more clarity than anyone else that Rick didn't think he could live without him. But his own body ached at Birdperson's words regardless, his own heart beating in his chest-- and he was all too hyperaware of it. He almost felt guilty for that, too, like he could help his own goddamn heartbeat. 

Awkwardly perching on the couch, Morty wraps his arms around his knees as he watches the intimate moment between Birdperson and Rick, thoughts buzzing with pain and regret. "Yeah, that sounds-- really bad," Morty says falteringly, knowing that even that was a fucking laughable understatement. But what do you say to that? There's nothing you can say. Morty couldn't sit here and say he understood, because he _didn't_ and that would piss Rick off. He couldn't sit here and apologize for not knowing, because that doesn't do _anyone_ any good--

So he says it sounds bad, because it does. And it's the most honest thing he can think of to say, fingers still kneading at his knees and body still clenched tight, in case Birdperson or Rick needed anything out of him at all.

"It is really bad," Birdperson repeats, and manages to somehow make Morty's words sound wise. Like there are no words strong enough to describe how awful it is, so one has to resort to the simplest definition just to carry the idea across. It is, truly, _really bad._ Tipping his head back so he can look down at Rick he asks, "Have you watered the tree, Rick?"

"No. Fuck no. I've just been avoiding it," Rick mutters, anger and pain in his voice. 

"Then it is no wonder it has bloomed into a forest. If you do not give yourself over to the mourning then it will never pass," Birdperson hums. 

"How am I supposed to do that when I'm stuck _here?"_ Rick says, his voice shattered and tight in his chest. "My family can't understand this, they've never felt it-- and I can't take their shallow pity."

"You are not _stuck_ anywhere," Birdperson reminds him. "But you _are_ here. Morty loves you. That is why he called me. He does not need to feel it to love you."

It's such a simple statement, that Morty loves Rick. From the outside without context, it seems obvious. Of course a grandson loves his grandfather, that's just expected. But within the Smith family, love is not guaranteed just because of blood-- and even less than that, love is not expressed even if it's felt. Rick peels himself off of Birdperson's chest in order to turn and look at Morty, curled up like a pillbug on the sofa, and feels something unstick inside him. 

Like a log finally giving way in a dam, the water springs a leak, and then rushes forward in a torrent, breaking down the last of Rick's barriers. It's been weeks and he's just been so miserable that it's been like wearing blinders. He couldn't consider Morty at all from the bottom of his pit of despair, he had no room within him to think about anything else but holding his grief back with every ounce of strength in his body. 

He sees Morty now, though. Scared and small and hoping this doesn't backfire like everything else. For once, it seems, Morty made the right call, because Rick just reaches out to put his hand on his head, scratching his fingers through his curls without a word. He can't return the affection verbally-- Morty hadn't even been the one to give it himself. But just as obvious as it should have been to him that Morty loves him, it's just as evident in his tired eyes as he looks down at the boy now. 

Morty's eyes go wide at the simple touch, and he raises his arm to catch Rick's hand with his own, squeezing the much bigger palm with both of his hands. There's still nothing he can say that sounds even half as good as what Birdperson is laying down, sounding wise far beyond Morty's years and with good reason-- he _was_ far beyond Morty's years. But it's working, whether it's the experience of a long life lead or just having emotional maturity beyond being 16. 

Instead, Morty is just physically there for Rick. Squeezing his hand, leaning into whatever touch he can be allotted, not speaking, knowing that he didn't have to say anything right now to be there for Rick. He just had to be there.

They're just-there for quite a while on the couch, crowding in around Rick on both sides, allowing him to just _feel_ his grief for the first time since Five died. Maybe there had been some part of Rick that convinced him if he never actually acknowledged Five's death within himself, then it would never be _completely_ true, but he can't deny the freeing experience of just letting himself fucking _cry_. 

This is the thing his family didn't seem to know how to break through to the other side of. No amount of guilting from Beth or Jerry or Summer would ever have broken down Rick's barricades and allowed him to be _vulnerable_ like this. He never could have healed if they kept beating their hands against the brick wall he put up around himself. 

By the time they hear the front door open, it doesn't even feel as though hours had passed, but they hear the telltale sign of Beth removing her coat and tossing her keys onto the table by the door, and Rick sits up out of the nest of limbs and feathers that he and two of his favorite people had become. He pulls himself back together, running his fingers through his hair until he's at least marginally presentable, and truthfully his head feels clearer now than it has in weeks. 

Like he'd managed to clear out all the cobwebs taking up so much space inside him, Rick feels... well, not good. There was no feeling _good_ in this situation. But he at least doesn't feel like he's drowning anymore, and that alone is a massive step in the right direction. He ruffles Morty's hair again before clearing his throat and stepping around the corner, where Beth jumps slightly in surprise at his sudden appearance. 

"Whoa, dad, you're out of your room," she says as she toes her shoes off. 

"Yeah. Birdperson's here for dinner," he says, his voice hoarse and raw, but she doesn't comment on it. 

"Birdperson! It's been a while," she comes around the corner to greet the bird, and Rick gives Morty a pointed Look, holding his gaze for a few seconds wordlessly as Beth launches into a friendly bit of smalltalk with BP, before he turns away and heads through the kitchen, the sound of the garage door opening and closing sounding out a moment later. 

Morty follows, taking advantage of being overlooked by his mom to slip out of the living room and down the hallway. He tugs on his shirt, his pants, pulling himself back into some state of being put-together. At some point he thought he might have drifted off, the bundle they'd become was so warm and comfortable and quiet that he hadn't been entirely able to stop himself. 

He follows Rick to the garage, opening and shutting the door, this time much quieter so as not to let any of the other family onto where they'd gone. They liked Birdperson. They would no doubt take this as a step in the right direction, maybe even pat themselves on the back for being so hospitable and welcoming and encouraging of Rick's friends. 

Not that it mattered. Rick and Morty knew the truth. "H..Hey, Rick," Morty mutters, his voice sounding rough and crackly from so long without use. He locks the door behind him, not wanting anyone to interrupt them, "You good?"

Rick leans back against the counter, crossing his ankles on the ground, and his arms in front of his chest. He looks at the ground for a moment, his thoughts all rushing around in his head without focus. Indulging in the grief he'd been avoiding for so long has his head a little bit scrambled, but he lets out a long, slow breath to try and relax some of the whirring between his ears. 

"I'm..." he starts, and immediately falters. He doesn't know how to express how he feels, he doesn't know how to just be open with Morty in the way the poor kid deserves. In the way he's _earned_ , frankly. He isn't good at the soft crap people expect, when it comes to sharing feelings. He looks up at Morty and sees a boy looking at him like he's about to hang off every word that leaves Rick's mouth-- because he _is._ Morty isn't expecting softness out of Rick, he never has. Morty has never done anything but expect Rick to be completely himself, whether Morty currently loves or hates him for it. Morty respects him for who he is more than anyone else in their family, and god fucking damn it, he deserves better from Rick for it.

So he drops the idea that he has to say something soft or meaningful, and just opens his arms instead, and when Morty rushes forward to fill them, he drops his nose to sit in the kid's hair with a sigh. "Bet you think you're hot shit now, huh?" he mutters, with the first drop of humor to touch his voice in months. 

"Yeah, maybe a little bit," Morty admits sheepishly, burying his nose in Rick's chest and nuzzling in deep, taking a deep, long breath and just _smelling_ Rick... including all the weeks of irregular bathing. If Morty wasn't already far too intimate with the smell of Rick's unwashed body, he'd probably be disgusted. As it was, it served as a poignant reminder that Rick was here, and alive, and honestly? That was pretty good for him. 

It's still not right to smile or make jokes, not really. Not about anything that matters. But there's also no point in trying to extract an emotional moment where one clearly doesn't need to be. And if Rick is alright with not saying something indulgently sappy, then Morty is okay with it, too. 

Morty's arms slip around Rick's waist. He's still so small in comparison to his grandpa, even if the past three months had significantly cut Rick down to size. He pulls his face away from Rick's ribs just long enough to add, "J-Just give it 'til dinner, though. You know mom likes to talk about what a weird baby I was w-whenever Birdperson comes around."

Rick manages the smallest of half-there smiles in one corner of his mouth before it droops again. It's not as though he'd been cured of every heavy sorrow that weighed on him by one good cry on the couch, he can't just spring back like a rubber band. He's all stretched out, weary and tired, and it'll take some time before he ever resembles something like his old self again... but it's a start. 

Morty never gave up. He might not have known what to do, he might have been clueless-- but at least he'd been earnest in his cluelessness. Even though he didn't know what to do, he at least _owned_ his ignorance, unlike the rest of their family, who were so quick to shift blame and absolve themselves of guilt. Maybe it was because of years of being told by Rick that he's a fucking idiot-- or maybe he's just brave enough to know when to ask for help when he's in over his head. He _never_ gave up on Rick, even when Rick was trying to give up, himself. 

He realizes all at once how horribly he's been neglecting the boy for so long-- and worse, he realizes that he feels _bad_ about it. He'd gotten so used to just handing out whatever scraps of affection he currently felt like tossing Morty's way, and then he got wrapped up in Five for so long... he just sort of let his and Morty's relationship fall by the wayside. And even _then_ , the boy never gave up on him. Since when did he actually care enough about Morty to feel _bad_ about mistreating him? Shit, Five really _did_ make him soft.

Cupping Morty's face, he tips his head back, and leans down to give him a surprisingly gentle kiss. It's fleeting, nearly fucking _timid_ after so long without indulging in affection with Morty, but it's no less meaningful. Morty sags a little bit into the kiss, hands raising to hold onto Rick's like he was going somewhere. But he doesn't deepen the kiss or push it any farther. He lets Rick set the pace and decide his own terms, and when Rick pulls away much sooner than Morty would like, he lets him do that, too-- and tries to ignore how misty his eyes had become, or how they burned with unshed tears, and no doubt looked red and glossy like he was trying to stifle a storm. 

"W-We're okay, Rick," Morty says, and seems like he's saying it as much for Rick's benefit as his own. It's a reassurance and a promise all wrapped up in one. Morty didn't think anything of Rick. Morty hoped Rick wouldn't think anything bad of him. They would be okay. Everything would be okay. He was determined to do anything possible to make sure it was. "W-Wanna grab dinner?"

"Yeah," Rick says, pushing Morty's curls back off his forehead. They _are_ okay. As close to okay as Rick can possibly be, right now. 

Birdperson's intervention really does mark the turning of a new leaf. Rick doesn't suddenly make an exuberant re-entrance into the Smith daily life, he still holes up sometimes, but it happens less and less over the next few days. Morty luckily found a moment to inform Summer, Jerry and Beth not to say a fucking word about Rick's attempted turnaround, knowing even without it being said that Rick would immediately close back off if any attention was drawn to his healing. They would have to approach the whole ordeal like he was a frightened, feral animal, and doubly luckily his family actually _listens_ to his advice. 

Rick starts having dinner with them again, even if he isn't very talkative at first, but just being around his family without them making a big deal about him being around slowly rebuilds his spirits. By day four, he's feeling confident that his family aren't going to make a big deal about him making an attempt to recover from his depression, and actually sits and watches TV with them for a couple hours after dinner. 

He showers again, and shaves the stubble from his cheeks, he puts on real clothes-- hell, he puts on pants with a zipper and a _belt_. And with every step out of the pit he takes, he feels more and more like a person, again. They're all just baby steps, but they all count, and they all carry him further away from his despair. 

There are still moments in the coming days when grief claims him again, and he has to hide from his family just to re-center himself. There are moments where he remembers all at once that Five is gone, and the agony overtakes him faster than he can collect himself. He wonders how long those moments will linger, for how many months or years he'll be briefly debilitated by the sense memory of what he lost. 

But he's getting better, little by little, at recovering from the lows more quickly. Sometimes it takes hours-- sometimes he'll be back in just a few minutes. His family at least has the decency to be understanding, at least to the point they don't actively complain about his comings and goings, even if sometimes they look like they _really_ want to whenever they're reminded all over again that Rick isn't _Well_ yet, and his recovery isn't over, and things aren't completely back to normal. 

Eventually, there come to be more okay days than bad days. Days where Morty and Rick spend time together procrastinating his homework, or where the family goes on prolonged family chore days, which is agonizing but surprisingly okay, too-- It's one of Rick's first times leaving the house in the last 4 months, and Morty thinks he catches him almost shitting on Jerry a few times. He definitely sees Rick roll his eyes, and Morty realizes then that he'd really been afraid he'd never see that again.

Birdperson visits a few more times aside from the first, but no one seems to mind his presence. Morty certainly doesn't, for no other reason than he knows the comfort it gives Rick. They could spend entire nights in silence sat next to each other, and it still seemed to help. 

Morty didn't know when to suggest moving on. It probably wasn't his place to suggest it at all. But he hated to see Rick dwell any longer than he had on the ghost of a man who was now long gone. He wished there was something he could do, or say, something he could assure Rick of to promise that Five wasn't going to be forgotten if Rick just started living his life again, seeing the world again. If Morty could get Rick to take that final step back into the real world, his recovery would be immediate-- Morty just knew it. But it wasn't his place to guide Rick's mourning. So he waited, hoping Rick comes to the conclusion himself before too long.

It's six months, before Rick gets there on his own. Six months of crippling depression, followed by a... bizarrely normal life. More normal than anything he'd lead since before he got the portal gun the first time, decades and decades ago. It takes him so long just to feel like a _person_ again, and then longer still for that normal life full of random errands and long hours of senseless TV and smalltalk to feel stale. 

He didn't _forget_ what his life was like, before. Full of adventure and danger and fun. It just took him a long time to get to a point where he feels like he could even consider resuming that lifestyle. There was a point where he thought he never could again, but now routine is starting to turn into monotony, and he realizes that there's no more growth to be had, here at home. 

But just rocketing back into the wild blue yonder doesn't feel right, either. Not without at least closing the door behind him, first. He has to officially lay to rest the last chapter of his life, which means returning to the dimension where he lost Five, and paying his respects. He slips the flask into his jacket that he and Five used to share, and gathers a couple other keepsakes into his pockets that he plans to bury in place of a body-- things he and Five had collected, in their time together. Ticket stubs, meaningful memories held in bottle caps and a bent coin-- junk that would only hurt him lying around if he were to stumble across it again. He doesn't need the stuff to hold onto the memories. 

He invited Morty along, both because he's the only other person who knew Five at all and could participate in the gesture-- but also because Rick doesn't want to have to go back there and face the fire alone. As his grandson trots into the garage, prepared to head out, Rick sets the dial on his portal gun back to Five's dimension, and takes only a moment of grief for himself as he looks down at the set of numbers they fought so hard to try and find, a wistful "what-if" lingering for a few seconds in his head as he wonders what would have become of them if they hadn't failed, before he manages to lock it back down. 

"Ready?" he glances at Morty before turning the date to a year after the apocalypse. He doesn't want to step through and still see fire choking out the sky, he doesn't want to see the world turned to ash. He just wants to be able to plant a flag in Five's honor and move on. 

"Ready," Morty answers. 

Rick lifts the gun, and pulls the trigger. The tip of the gun glows green, and a few sparks of light leave it, but the gun makes an odd whirring sound, and the portal fails to fire. Rick frowns and shakes the gun, smacking the side of it against his hand a few times, and then raises it and tries again, only to the same result. 

"Is it out of portal fluid?" Morty asks, even though he can clearly see the full chamber. 

"No, it's not. It's fine," Rick lays it on the table and opens the panel on the side, squinting at all the complex internal wiring, reading it like a roadmap. "There's nothing wrong with it at all. All systems functional. I don't know why it's doing this." 

He drags his stool over and hunches down on the gun, carefully picking apart a few pieces. There's nothing out of place, nothing frayed or broken or even _dusty_. There's absolutely no reason it shouldn't work, there's nothing inside the gun preventing it from firing a portal. Which means, he realizes with a pit of dread closing in his chest, that it means something is wrong on the _other end_. 

Closing the gun in a hurry, Rick instead fires up a different machine he hadn't touched in just as long-- the complex network of dimensions he'd been monitoring to find Five in the first place. The screens all unfold and blink to life, light flickering behind their surfaces and displaying the complicated array of nets and dots that Morty can't begin to understand beyond shapes on the screen-- but he doesn't need to understand it to see that one of the screens has just gone completely black. 

"Shit," Rick whispers, that dread sinking lower in his stomach, and he reaches up to cover his mouth as he stares at the black screen. 

"What is it?" Morty asks, tugging at his shirt as he steps over to look at the wall of monitors in front of Rick. He didn't know what they meant, but he knew one was completely dark and knew it wasn't supposed to be... and judging by Rick's reaction it was really bad news that it was. He frowns, glancing from Rick to the machine, then back at the screens, "Did something break?"

"Yeah. Something broke," Rick sighs, hanging his forehead in his hand. "That's Five's dimension. His home. The one we visited. The one he..." the words 'failed to save' hang unsaid in the air. Rick doesn't need to say it. Morty was there, he saw the destruction firsthand. A deep, painful ache settles in Rick's chest. He swivels in his seat to look at Morty, and sees by the furrow in his brow that he still doesn't get it, and he sighs. "It's gone, Morty. The entire dimension is gone."

That draws him up short, "How does a _dimension_ disappear?" Morty asks, bewildered, "Can they do that? I-I thought you just needed the number and...?" He gestures stupidly, to the gun. With all the dimensional fuckery that went on at The Citadel, Morty had never heard of an entire _dimension_ disappearing unless..."Could it have been destroyed by something?" Morty almost sounds afraid to ask. Who or what could hate Five enough to destroy his entire _dimension?_

"Yeah, Morty. Dimensions can be destroyed," Rick mutters, and reaches up to grind his hand into his forehead. Speaking from personal experience, he knows exactly what goes into destroying a dimension. It's not easy, and isn't something that can happen on accident, it takes direct intervention, direct meddling. There's a muted sense of hopelessness in his chest that takes hold of him for a few moments, as he realizes how pointless it would have been to try and rescue Five even if he _had_ decided to make the attempt and mess with the timeline. 

It galls him to think that Five could have failed his mission so spectacularly that his entire dimension could have collapsed in on itself like a dying star. But just as soon as he thinks it, it sinks past the grief and properly hits his brain, where it stops making sense. Even if Five _did_ fail, and the world ended, that wouldn't have collapsed the entire dimension. There's so much more to any dimension than just Earth, there are other planets in every dimension, other societies. No matter how much Five feels like the center of _his_ universe, he isn't the center of _the_ universe, not even his own. 

No, the only thing that can completely collapse a dimension is paradoxical timeline meddling. He knows it wasn't him, or a decision he's yet to make, because he would already be living in the effects of it from the past, even if he's yet to intervene in the future. The paradox doesn't involve him whatsoever, in that case. 

But who else had the power to meddle in Five's timeline? The Commission, maybe? Was collapsing his entire dimension one last fucking hurrah? One last steaming shit they could take on the legacy of the man whose life they already ruined? It doesn't make sense. They're not the revenge type. Well, the Handler might be, but she's hardly got enough pull in the agency to advocate for the total collapse of an entire timeline. The resources alone that it would take, there'd be no justifying it to a capitalist corporation like the Commission. 

The only other person who could be capable of meddling in the timeline of Five's dimension is... Five himself. With his natural, if _unstable_ time travel abilities, he could have done something to his own timeline in the time it took for Rick to find him that retroactively erased the entire thing in a paradoxical meltdown. 

But no, that doesn't make sense, either. If that were the case, Rick wouldn't have been able to visit his dimension in the first place in order to witness the carnage. The collapse would have taken place before his arrival, if Five had messed with the timeline prior to Rick finding his dimension. He can feel the dusty gears in his brain starting to whir faster as he stands up off his stool, staring at the black screen. 

If Rick visited Five's dimension six months ago, and the dimension is collapsed _now_ , that can only mean one thing. He feels his heart flutter queasily in his chest as the thought takes root in his head. 

"Five is alive," he whispers under his breath, like a prayer. 

"Uh.... alive?" Morty asks uneasily, hesitantly glancing from machine to man again. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to share his grandpa's enthusiasm. Of course it would be nice if by some miracle after half a year Five magically came back from the dead, but wasn't Rick the one who knew better than anyone else that if something good was going to happen, it already would have? That was the messy part about time travel. If everything worked out, surely someone would have come back in time to alleviate his suffering, if the alteration didn't automatically change the timeline itself.

And more importantly, how did his timeline collapsing _prove_ that? "I-Is that the most rational conclusion? I don't know about his dimension, but he kind of seemed like a regular old guy to me... E-Even if he was alive, if his dimension collapsed...?"

"Dimensions can only collapse in the event of a paradox," Rick says as he unplugs one of the screens and turns it around to start fiddling with the wiring, grabbing a small soldering gun to rework some of the circuitry inside. "And a paradox can only occur through time travel."

"Yeah?" Morty says as he watches Rick slam the back on the screen and turn it back around, rebooting it. While the screen flickers back to life, Rick turns back to his portal gun, disengaging the vial of portal fluid and sticking it into a centrifuge. 

"And Five," Rick continues, rolling a cart out from the closet and grabbing a device with some kind of port in the side, hitching it to the side of the screen and working it into the circuits there. "Knows how to time travel. Organically. What, I didn't tell you he has super powers?"

"Super powers?!" Morty yelps.

He brushes past Morty again when the centrifuge dings, and pulls the vial back out, pouring the portal fluid into a separate beaker. There's just a few drops of clear gel at the bottom, which he scrapes out with a metal strip, and rubs onto a fresh petri dish. 

"But y-you said anything that was going to happen already has, right?" Morty sounds desperate to understand, watching what Rick was doing with rapt, if clueless, attention, "So when you went to the dimension last time, shouldn't it have already been collapsed?" and then it seems to hit him, a little belated, "Wait, you think he _j-just_ did something?"

"Time exists in a series of fixed events," Rick says as he sticks the petri dish into a modified toaster oven and cranking it up to the maximum setting, the wiring inside glowing a brilliant red as the petri dish starts to bubble. "Time in between those fixed events can be altered to create branching paths, but if something happens to change or completely _erase_ one of those crucial events-- boom. Total system collapse, the whole thing comes down like a fucking jenga tower."

He pulls his sleeve over his hand and takes the petri dish back out, hissing slightly as it burns his fingertips anyway. There's a substance that has filmed over the top of the gel now that looks a lot like skin, and Rick carefully unsticks it from the gel by squirting a clear fluid over it with an eyedropper, and then peels it off with a pair of tweezers.

"Things get messy in the multiverse, because every decision made by every person at every point in history already exists in its own branching path, moving in a linear direction from the moment time started to the moment it ends," Rick continues as he lays the skin on a glass slide and scrapes the surface with a scalpel, and smears the scraping inside a glass vial with a slightly yellowish liquid in the bottom, which he shakes violently until it turns a brilliant red. "So if you go back in time in any timeline to alter the sequence of events, you don't rewrite your _own_ timeline, you _shift_ timelines. You leave your original dimension and hop one over, or ten over, or a hundred, depending on how drastic your decisions are. Remember when I made you that quicksave button and you wound up a few hundred dimensions displaced?"

This was the most active Rick had been in six months. Morty for all his skepticism and worry couldn't help but be caught up in it just a little, his own pulse beginning to quicken as Rick starts to synthesize and distill whatever was left from the residue into something he could read-- presumably what had happened to the Universe, or where Five had gone to from there. 

"Do you think he's been jumping dimensions this whole time?" He asks, sounding a little awed at the idea, "O-or did time just pass differently for us?" Either are equally as likely, if Five was going down the path of disintegrating timelines-- Morty knew firsthand how easy that was to do, once a domino effect had started.

"If he'd altered the timeline between fixed events, those alterations would have paid off and made a difference by the time we got there," Rick explains quickly. "But if he changed a fixed point, if he was operating from outside his own timeline and affecting the original one with new actions-- that time _does_ pass different. Outside of a timeline, quantum time passes in unison with itself in the space between dimensions, so even if he went back in time before we got there, if he hadn't yet made the decision that would collapse his original timeline, then we would have been able to take advantage of that window of time when it was still stable. Make sense?"

"Not at all," Morty whined candidly, wringing his hands together, but he knows that it doesn't matter if he understands it completely. What really matters is his next question. "Can you tell where he's at now?" Emboldened to approach, his fingers fist in the lab coat at Rick's lower back, peeking around his arm to see what he was doing.

"I'm gonna try," Rick says as he turns back to the device hooked up to the side of the screen, and plugs the vial of red liquid into the side, twisting it so it locks into place, and he turns the device on so the fluid drains inside. Pulling a cord from the back of the screen, he plugs it into a terminal on his desk and starts typing. "If we were able to go to Five's dimension before, and it's collapsed _since_ then, that means that something happened to erase a fixed point in his timeline, creating a paradox so severe that the entire timeline ceased to be. He didn't just go back in time and shift dimensions, he created a _completely new timeline_. One that didn't exist before, and overwrote his own timeline-- like taping over a VHS."

Not that Morty probably even knows what a VHS is. That doesn't matter. Rick's fingers are flying over the keyboard, as the device in the side of the screen beeps and whirs, processing the information that had been fed into it. 

"That means with _this_ , I should be able to find him," Rick continues, and finally looks back up at the screen. "I hope."

"You _hope?"_ Morty yelps. 

"I'm almost never wrong, but," Rick grits his teeth uncertainly as he waits for the screen to activate, the wheel in the center buffering as it sifts through the information. Rick adjusts the antennae on the side, dark eyes flicking across the screen. "Just in case, I don't want to get my hopes up." 

If he convinced himself with a little _too much_ gusto that Five was alive, but it turns out he completely misinterpreted all this information somehow, it would feel like Five died a second time, and he couldn't survive a second plunge over that particular cliff. 

The machine whirs and chews on the new information it was given, sifting through billions upon billions of possibilities for universes, looking for the new one that contained the genetic material supplied to it. Morty catches his own breath going short as he waits, in just as much heartbreaking anticipation as Rick has. Maybe he wasn't in love with Five-- hell, whether Morty even _liked_ the old man at this point was still debatable, considering their past-- but he sure as hell knew how much Five meant to Rick. That was enough for the stakes to be properly raised, and for Morty to want this to go well, too. 

After what feels like an eternity of silence hung between them, interrupted only by the mechanical whirring and clicking, the wheel in the center stops and illuminates, the screens lighting up across the board and a new dimensional string appearing before their eyes. The tension in the room seems to hinge on that code, and Morty sucks in an apprehensive breath through his teeth, looking from the code to Rick, then back again.

"I-Is that it?" He asks, like he was also afraid to get his hopes up. He kind of was. If this went poorly, Morty had a feeling even a cuddle session from Birdperson couldn't fix it.

"Yeah," Rick replies breathlessly. "That's it."

Six months of torture, of depression and heartache, and Five has been _right there_ the whole time, just out of reach. Six months of anguish, half a year of wasting away and it all could have been avoided if Rick had just scanned the multiverse for the genetic material he already had. There's no point in taking any time to beat himself up, he'd already wasted too many months. He can ruminate on it later and kick himself in the pants for it then. 

He wouldn't have believed it unless he was looking the evidence right in the face. If Five's dimension collapsed and he went with it, the genetic material wouldn't have pinged anything. Just to be sure, he compares the new code against the previous string, and sure enough after a moment of buffering, his suspicion is confirmed-- it didn't exist, the last time he was scanning the multiverse for Five's location. 

Rick pours the portal fluid back into the gun and manually plugs in the new number, staring down at the readout in shock. He's one portal away from seeing Five again. He almost can't breathe. 

Looking up at Morty, he swallows hard, his brow furrowing down over his eyes. "I've gotta go alone," he says, his hand creaking around the handle of the gun. He doesn't want Morty to see him reunite with Five, he knows it's going to be a vulnerable moment, and he's already let Morty see too much of his raw insides. He needs to be able to keep _something_ close to the vest. Some things have to be just for him. 

"Are you sure?" Morty asks, already knowing from the look in Rick's eye that there was to be no leeway on this. If it really was Five, well-- yeah, Morty kind of understood why that might be. That moment really wasn't for him to be involved in.

Something in his chest knots, though, and he pats at his pockets for anything he might have been holding that Rick would need-- and honestly, he doesn't know why he bothered. Morty has never been the packhorse for any important equipment. But it would have been nice to supply something, anyway. As it was, Morty is able to awkwardly tug at Rick's lab coat, frowning and patting at him like it would be the last time he'd get to-- as if Rick had no plans of coming back. With Five on the line, maybe he wouldn't. Morty would just have to hold his breath and hope.

With a nod, Morty steps away, frowning and shoving his hands into his pockets, "Yeah-- Yeah, I know, I know you are. I know you have to, just-- just be careful, okay? We-we'll be here when you get back. I can call Birdperson, too. If you need to meet me somewhere else just-- just let me know and I'll get there, okay? Be safe?" He felt like a mother sending a child to school, but Morty didn't know _what_ Rick was about to meet, and it had the potential to undo a lot of hard work. So yeah, he was a little scared.

"I'll be back before you know it," Rick says, ruffling Morty's hair. 

He doesn't know what he's about to walk into, either, and he's a little scared to find out. He's not scared to see Five, but scared that somehow his data was wrong, his machines were wrong, that something, _anything_ was wrong, and he was about to lose Five all over again with the confirmation that this is all just a wild red herring. But he can't just ignore the possibility, so he takes a deep breath, fires the portal into the air, and climbs through to the other side. 

The first thing he notices is the light and air quality change drastically. From the dry and well-lit environment of his garage, he steps through into a damp, cold and dimly lit root cellar, judging by the low dirt ceiling and stone walls. His gun had been set to bring him to within 30 feet of Five, at the closest viable position for a portal to manifest without intersecting with anything, but as Rick's eyes adjust to the gloom of the single hanging light bulb in the small space, he takes in the sight of _several_ people-- five adults, and one young boy, even younger than Morty. And _none of them_ are Five. 

Six pairs of confused, startled eyes turn to look at him as his portal closes behind him, and his chest clenches. Of _course_ something went wrong, of _course_ he couldn't have been so lucky, of _course_ this random group of people are going to bear witness to a mounting meltdown, of _course_ everything had to go wrong, of _course_ Rick had to let himself get his _stupid fucking hopes up_ \-- 

"Rick?!" It's the boy who says something from his corner against the wall, and the silence shatters like glass immediately after.

With a rumble of talking that sounds more like thunder, all five adults talk over one another at once:

"Did he just _appear_ out of midair?"  
"Sick gun, mind doing me a solid and putting one right between your eyes?"  
"You _know_ this guy, Five?"  
"What's going on?"  
"We don't know what he's after, don't say shit--"

"Shut UP, all of you _shut up_ \-- Rick is that you?"

He's small. _Really_ small, actually, which might make sense considering Five hadn't been very big as an old man, either, but somehow he'd always seemed bigger. The kid in front of Rick is just _small_ , wearing a schoolboy blazer and shorts, with socks to his goddamn knees. There's very little that would tie this boy to the Five Rick had known at all, honestly. His jaw is cut from marble, his pale skin deprived of the myriad of scars webbing across the surface like words on the pages of a book. There's not a scrap of facial hair, not a wrinkle-- hell, his voice hasn't even dropped yet, so he doesn't even _sound_ like himself.

But there, on his cheek, two little black spots, like he'd put them there intentionally with a sharpie. Hard to fake, unless some random boy was really committed to the detailwork of pretending to be a young version of the old man a random other old man was in love with. But even if he didn't know how implausible that way, looking up at Rick were some of the brightest, steeliest green eyes he'd only seen the likes of in one other person, bright and _alive_ and currently full of worry.

Five is talking. Snapping his fingers in front of Rick's face, actually, even if he has to stretch to do it. "--Rick? What're you _doing_ here, do you have any idea where you are? How did you find us?"

It's a lot to process, all at once. The pieces fall into place as Rick stares down at the boy standing under him, and he can see the building blocks of the face he fell in love with. The same square jaw and cool green eyes, the way his brow furrows just-so, even the shape of his lips. There's no mistaking his features, even if some 45 years have melted off of them. 

That must mean that the people behind him... Rick looks up past the boy to the group of adults standing huddled and confused behind them, and starts to put it together. He'd seen Five's family only once, from afar, and they'd been something like 16 at the time, and it was a _long_ time ago. But looking at them now, he can see the familiar features in the eclectic bunch of people. 

Which means it _did_ work. Rick _had_ actually found Five. He looks like he's about 13 years old for no fucking reason, and he doesn't know why they're all hiding in a basement somewhere, but it doesn't matter. None of the details matter. 

There's no word for the intense feeling in Rick's chest, there's too many emotions all compounding together. Regret that he'd wasted so much time in misery, fear about what would have happened if Morty hadn't managed to revive him after his attempt in the garage, relief that Five is alive, shame over how far Rick let himself go in his grief when he didn't need to-- all roiling together under an overwhelming sense that none of it fucking matters now that Rick has found him. 

So many things he wants to say all fight together right behind his teeth, and none of them make it out of his mouth. Instead, all he can do is drop to his knees in front of the boy and throw his arms around him. He _has to_ feel him, he has to feel the solidness of his frame, the weight of his body. He almost pulls Five up onto his toes, he crushes him so tightly into his chest, and he buries his face into his shoulder with the softest, shuddering sob.

It might be the most affection Five has shown anyone in the two weeks since he'd dropped back into his family's life, and the expressions on the faces of his strange menagerie of siblings seems to support that idea. They glance at one another awkwardly when their littlest brother is hugged, and are equally as awed when, following a concerned look turned to the old man currently draped around him-- he actually _returns_ the gesture.

His arms don't quite fit around Rick like they used to, and he certainly doesn't slot against Rick's side like a perfect little puzzle piece anymore. Fingers thread their way into unkempt blue hair, and Five hooks his chin over Rick's shoulder, eyes closing as he presses Rick to his chest in kind. There's no way for him to know what Rick had gone through in his absence, no way for him to know what Rick had planned, or thought, or even followed through with; but he knows that this display isn't normal, wouldn't even be normal if they were alone let alone in front of a group of strangers, and it doesn't take a genius to know that Rick needed him.

"You wouldn't fucking _believe_ the last two weeks I've had," Five mutters a little humorously in Rick's ear, throat swollen with emotion. His grip had turned into a vice around Rick's shoulders, fingers tight in his hair and locked in like he wasn't planning on letting him go any time soon.

Predictably it's Five's siblings who ruin it, a petulant clearing of the throat interrupting their emotional reunion and making Five's entire body bristle. Rick can feel it under his touch, the full-bodied reaction to the imperious coughing that dared interrupt their moment-- but it's such a sign of life, so visceral and immediate and real, that it's hard to be mad, even if Five certainly sounds mad enough for the both of them.

 _"What?"_ Five snaps up at them, sounding as exhausted as he was impatient.

"Hi, I'm Allison," Without deigning to give Five's tantrum a word, Allison offers Rick an indulgent smile and a wave, "You clearly know our brother, but he's forgotten how to introduce people to each other. You are...?"

What a good question, honestly. The easy answer would just be his name, but that wouldn't actually give Five's family any information about who he is or how he knows their brother. He barely knows who he is himself, anymore. The last several months have been such a fucking whirlwind, and to know that he stepped back into the other man's timeline only _two weeks_ after they'd parted... it's dizzying to even consider that half a year of the worst period in his life could be condensed into the same space of time it took for 14 days to pass. 

He drops a hand onto Five's shoulder and gives it a squeeze through the material of his uniform. He has so many questions, so many things to tell Five, but it'll all have to wait until they can steal a moment alone together. For now he just looks up at Five's family and replies, "I'm Five's partner." 

Klaus immediately snaps his fingers and points at Diego. "I called it, I knew it, what did I tell you? I _said_ , statistically speaking, there's no way I was the only gay sibling."

"Five had a _wife_ ," Luther argues. 

"You can be gay and still have a wife, Luther. That's what a bisexual is," Klaus bickers right back. 

"Vanya had a _girlfriend_ \--" Diego adds, and it devolves into bickering from there. 

It's such a refreshingly _normal_ reaction for a family to have that Rick can feel his entire body sagging into it. It's surreal to be standing here, his hand clamped in a vice over Five's shoulder as the boy looks up at him with a sarcastic brow raised, as if to say " _family_." There's still something heavy in Rick's eyes that Five knows they don't have the space to address yet, on either end, but they'll get there. They have all the time in the world now, as Five sinks into a lengthy and exhausted explanation about what the last two weeks have been like for him, and how his family had accidentally created an alternate timeline that paradoxically undid everything they'd ever lived through in their lives, landing them in a familiar city that none of them knew, hiding from a "Sparrow Academy" that none of them trusted. 

And as he listens to Five's family argue their way through six versions of the same story, Rick just sits there in a daze, watching the face of the man he loves as it contorts and expresses and pinches and sneers and laughs in ways Rick never thought he'd see again. 

Being in love is fucking _terrifying_. Rick's pretty sure he hates it for the soft, sentimental and desperate fool it's made him, for the choices it's brought him to make in the name of keeping Five safe and close, for the way it's affected him so wildly outside of his control. For a man who's always been so intent on controlling every aspect of his life and how he interacts with the multiverse, Rick really has fallen headlong into something that's about as easy to control as jello is to nail to a tree. 

He wishes he could say something romantic like he'd do it all again just to get back to this point, but Rick's pretty sure he would make a _lot_ of choices differently if he could have a do-over. There are moments he would change, crucial decisions he would make differently, different pains he would spare both himself and Five from-- but even if traveling back in time wasn't impossible thanks to the permanently dissolved timeline, when Rick watches Five interact with his family, he knows he couldn't risk getting in between Five and this... well. It's not exactly a happily ever after, it's not even an ending to anything-- but it's something that Five fought for his entire life, and Rick loves him enough to not even think about going back to fix any of his mistakes. 

That's got to be part of this whole love thing. That even though Rick is pretty much as powerful as it gets, could do _anything_ he wanted, he's not just willing but _able_ without thought or complaint to make compromises, even if it means ultimately saddling him with the pain of those six months of grief that made him sick, just to be right here, right back where he belongs, even if the alternative could be potentially better for him. They aren't exactly out of the woods, since it seems like Five and his family are still in trouble, but at least Rick knows he'll be right there the whole time to help them survive whatever turmoil they're currently suffering. He can finally join the all-important fight that Five has been preparing for his entire life to save his goddamn family. 

"So how did you two meet, anyway?" Klaus snaps Rick back out of his thoughts with his question as he leans back on his hands, and Rick blinks the cobwebs out of his eyes with a chuckle. 

"Well, it all started when he was sent to kill me..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO MUCH FOR READING!!! giving a crack crossover ship like this a chance means so much to us as writers! 
> 
> i'm sorry if it seems like it ends too abruptly, but since season 3 of TUA isn't out yet, we just don't know what's going to happen next! there's a chance we might revisit this AU after season 3 comes out and we have a chance to powow over the best way to fit Rick into the mix, but we also have other projects in mind, so no promises!


End file.
